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POEIS 



OF 



JOHN G. C. BRAINARD. 



NEW AND AUTHENTIC COLLECTION, 



WITH AN ORIGINAL 



MEMOIR OF HIS LIFE. 



HARTFORD: 

S. ANDRUS AND SON 

1849. 



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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1841, by 

EDWARD HOPKINS, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court ol the District of Connecticut 

Gilt, 
W. I*. Shoemaker 
7 8 »06 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

The first edition of the poems of Brainard appeared during 
the lifetime of the author, (1825,) and embraced nearly one 
half of the poetry contained in the present volume. That edi- 
tion was revised by him ; and, as some of the lines differ ma- 
terially from the copy originally published in the Connecticut 
Mirror, it may be interesting to those familiar v/ith his wri- 
tings to compare them. A few of these alterations will be 
found in the addenda, and a single instance may be noticed, in 
comparing the facsimile in this volume with the revised copy. 

A second edition was published in 1832, and an addition was 
made to the contents of the previous one of about fifty pieces, 
which had appeared chiefly in the Mirror after the Spring of 
1825. The mechanical execution and general appearance of 
that volume were unfavorable ; and in these respects it was 
not congenial to the tastes of the lovers of poetry generally, or 
satisfactory to the numerous friends of the bard. It was also, 
for the most part, printed in the absence of the publisher, a fact 
which may account for many of the numerous errors, chiefly 
in orthography and punctuation, which often marred the beau- 
ties, and obscured the sentiment of the poet. Beside these 
faults, the volume contained several pieces which, it is ascer- 
tained, were not the productions of the muse of Brainard. 
Among these were the pieces entitled, " The Young Widow," 
"0 well I love thee, native Land," "To the Moon, a Frag- 
ment," "Good Night," " The Girl I love," "To an antique 
Female Bust," and " To mine Old Plaid Cloak." All these 
pieces are from the pens of gentlemen better known in other 
walks than those of poesy ; yet there is in them so much of 
poetic excellence, and of affinity with Brainard, that in their 
former association with his poetry they harmonized finely. 
They both gave and received beauty in their contact — a fact 
highly complimentary, both to our poet and to the authors of 
these now " rejected pieces ;" the last of which, especially, 



IV ADVERTISEMENT. 

though by a different author, is characteristic not only of 
Brainard, but also of his " Old Plaid Cloak." 

During the preparation of the present volume for the press, 
exertions made to discover any unpublished poetry of the au- 
thor have availed but little ; this is the less surprising, when 
it is considered that probably every occasional production of 
his found its way, almost immediately, into the columns of a 
newspaper. One or two pieces, however, with a few others 
from the files of the Mirror, are now first published in a col- 
lection of his poetry. The arrangement by the author of the 
first half of the poems — that published under his supervision, 
and ending with " The Two Comets," is retained in the pres- 
ent edition, with the exception of two or three of the pieces 
above referred to, and the opening poem "On Connecticut 
River;" — and those which follow " The Two Comets" ap- 
pear, generally, in the order in which they v/ere originally 
published in the Mirror. The poem addressed to Charity, 
was the last contribution of Brainard to the columns of that 
paper ; and as it was intended for, and appeared as the " New- 
Year's Verses" for 1828, the author gave it the quaint title of 
" Thoughts of Mr. Eli Shepard, Carrier of the Connecticut 
Mirror, on Charity." The errors in the former edition, before 
adverted to, have been corrected in the present one; and every 
effort has been made to present to the reader a complete and 
correct edition of the poetry of Brainard, and in a dress ap- 
propriate and becoming to his muse. A new Memoir of the 
author, more extended and fuller than any which has pre- 
ceded it, has been prepared expressly for this edition : and the 
portrait, although from an unfinished pencil sketch, by Went- 
worth, (the only one known to have been taken of Brainard,) 
with the facsimile of his writing, it is believed will be favora- 
bly appreciated and valued by those who were familiar with 
the poet, and by the admirers of his genius. 

THE PUBLISHER. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

MEMO'/». , . . ^ . . . ix 

POEMS T:^^ "'TTARY TO THE MEMORY OF BR.AINARD. 

Monody it ♦-he Poet Brainard . . . . . li 

Tothe Memory of J. G. C, Brainard .... lii 

Farewell lo Brainard . .... liii 

BRAINARD'S POEMS. 

On Connecticut River , .... 65 

The Fall of Niagara 61 

Matchit Moodus 62 

On the Death of Commodore Oliver H. Perry ... 66 

A Mariner's Song 68 

Epithalamium 69 

Introduction to a Lady's Album 70 

The Shad Spirit 71 

The Tree Toad .... * 72 

Spring. To Miss 74 

On the Binhday of Washington 75 

Lines suggested by a Late Occurrence .... 76 

On a Late Loss 78 

On the Death of Rev. Levi Parsons 79 

On the Project of African Colonization .... 80 



VI CONTENTS. 

To the Marquis La Fayette 81 

Maniac's Song ' . 82 

To the Memory of Charles Brockden Brown ... 83 

Lord Exmouth's Victory at Algiers. 1816. . \ , 85 

Written for a Lady's Commonplace-Book .... 88 

The Lost Pleiad. To my Friend G .... 89 

The Alligator 90 

The Sea Gull . . 91 

The Captain. A Fragment ....*. 93 

Leather Stocking 94 

Extracts from Verses written for the New-Year, 1823. . 96 

The Newport Tower 100 

The Thunder Storm 102 

To a Missionary, who attended the late Meeting of the Bible 

Society at New York 104 

The Robber 105 

Sonnet to the Sea-Serpent 107 

"AesAlienum" 107 

The Guerrilla 108 

Jack Frost and the Caty-did 110 

Mr. Merry's Lament for " Long Tom" .... 112 

On the Death of Mr. Woodward, at Edinburgh . . , 114 

To the Dead 115 

The Deep 116 

The Good Samaritan 118 

The Nosegay 120 

The String around my Finger 121 

Salmon River 122 

The Black Fox of Salmon River 124 

One that 's on the Sea 126 

Presidential Cotillon 128 

Scire Facias. The Bar rcrs«« The Docket . . . 130 



CONTENTS. Vll 

Jerusalem ^ 132 

Isaiah, Chapter xxxv. 136 

The Indian Summer 137 

Written for an Album 138 

On the Loss of a Pious Friend 139 

The Two Comets 140 

To a young Friend learning to Play the Flute . . . 142 

Extracts from New-Year's Verses for 1825 . • . 143 

The Dog-Walch . - 145 

Sonnet. To a Lady on the Death of Mrs. . . J 46 

Sketch of an Occurrence on Board a Brig .... 147 

Stanzas. " The dead leaves strew the forest walk" . . 152 

Revery 153 

New- Year's Verses. For the Carrier of the Mirror. 1826 154 

To a Deaf and Dumb Lady ..*... 160 

An Evening Cloud 161 

On the Death of Alexander, Emperor of the Russias, at Ta- 

ganrok • . . 162 

Snow in April . . . , 164 

To a Lady who had Lost a Relative 165 

The Mocking-Bird 166 

The Sweetbrier 166 

Song — If I could Love , 167 

Qui Transtulit Sustinet 168 

Dirge. On the Death of Adams and Jefferson , . . 169 

To a Lady for a Nosegay 170 

" Stifled with Sweets" 171 

A Rainy Day , . 172 

Sonnet. To 173 

To the Moon 173 

The Grave-Yard 175 

The Sea-Bird's Song 176 



VIU CONTENTS. 

Stanzas. " On the lake of young life" .... 1T7 
Hymn for the Anniversary of the Hartford County Agricultural 

Society. 1826 179 

Stanzas. " My hopes were as bright as the bow" . , 180 

To a Child, the Daughter of a Friend .... 181 

The Invalid on the East End of Long Island . . , 182 

How to catch a Black-Fish . . • . . . 185 

The Storm of War 187 

The Money Diggers 189 

The Gnome and the Paddock 191 

Song. " The rocks, the rocks, among the rocks" . . 193 

On the Death of an Old Townsman 194 

Stanzas. " How well I remember" 195 

" Is it Fancy, or is it Fact ?" 196 

On a Rainbow at Night ' 197 

To a Friend in the Navy, sick at Home .... 198 

The Smack Race 200 

The Foot 202 

Fort Griswold, September 6, 1781 204 

Stanzas. " I know a brook" . .... 206 

The Drowned Boy 207 

The Widower 208 

Saturday Night at Sea 209 

Epistle from an Absent Editor 212 

An Invocation 214 

Charity 215 

Addenda ' 219 



MEMOIR. 



The birthplace of John Gardner Calkins Brainard 
was New London, in Connecticut. From the period 
of his birth, which occurred October 21st, 1796, to the 
year of his entrance into college, his time was spent 
under the roof of his father, the Hon. Jeremiah G. 
Brainard, formerly a judge of the Superior Court in 
that State. Here he received that early culture in 
mind and disposition, the happy development of which 
since, has imparted so much pleasure to the reading 
community. Those habits of good-nature, modesty, 
and sociableness, as also those poetic tastes and sensi- 
bilities, by which he became distinguished, were doubt- 
less nurtured, by his favorable circumstances, during 
that important period of life. Having finished his pre- 
paratory studies under the direction of an elder brother, 
he entered Yale College in 1811. He is described 
by those who knew him then, as not having made such 
efforts in the character of a student, as might have 
been expected from his evident genius and capacity. 
Whether this fact had its foundation in a native inac- 
tivity of body and mind, in too humble an appreciation 
of his powers, or in the generous sensibility which 



X MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. 

cannot inflict pain on a rival, it is difficult to determine. 
Probably these several circumstances had each its influ- 
ence. The regard which was entertained by his fel- 
low students for his superior intellect, — his beautiful 
genius, — doubtless became the more enhanced, on 
this account. Neither envy, nor the dread of rivalry, 
forbade the admiration of talent which interfered not 
with the honors of others, but was contented with its 
own manifestations, in its own way. That which he 
possessed of the mens divinior, was calmly and unosten- 
tatiously evolved on every occasion. It acquired 
character and consistency by degrees, and resembled 
the flowing of his own Connecticut, noiseless and placid 
and full, rather than the leaping and foaming of a cata- 
ract. His social and convivial qualities, equally with 
the gifts of intellect, drew forth the strong regards of 
his more particular acquaintance in the college, and he 
met them with the smile and the repartee, — with the 
playful jest and mimic fun, which are so easily tolera- 
ted in the gayer intercourse of friends, and which, in 
him, never gave offence. The possession of feelings 
of this kind was not, however, incompatible with a 
tinge of thoughtful and almost depressing pensiveness, 
which was sometimes observed to steal over his fea- 
tures. 

Brainard graduated in 1815, and on his return to his 
native place, commenced the study of law, in the office 
of his brother, William F. Brainard, Esq. On the 
completion of his professional course and admission to 
the Bar, he removed to the city of Middletown, with a 



MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. XI 

view lo the practice of law. This was in 1819, but in 
the earlier part of the year 1822, we find him in the 
city of Hartford, engaged in the duties of an editor of 
a weekly paper, the " Connecticut Mirror.'^'^ His ca- 
reer in the profession he had first chosen was, there- 
fore, short. He seems neither to have been fitted for 
the law, nor the law for him. The dreams of fancy 
filled his soul, when he should have been adding to 
i^e mass of his legal learnina;. He beckoned to the 
muses, when he should have secured a client. He 
cherished an over-wrought sensibility, when he should 
have ventured the asperity of the world's men and the 
world's ways. In short he considered himself as pos- 
sessing " a temperament," to use his own words, 
" much too sensitive for his own comfort, which ex- 
posed him to personal altercation, contradiction, and 
that sharp collision which tries and strengthens the 
passions of the heart, at least as much as it does the 
faculties of the mind." We can . scarcely wonder, 
then, that he was not destined to excel in a calling 
which requires a hardy cast of character, and which 
leads into those paths of strife, ambition, and political 
distinction, so abhorred by the fond poetic enthusiast. 
With whatever gifts of intellect he was endowed, and 
however he might have excelled in his profession, had 
he applied all his powers to it ; still it was not the call- 
ing he loved, and he had no disposition to make the 
required application. Judging by the event, he was 

• These duties commenced on the 25th of February. 



Xll MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. 

destined to become eminent in another walk of life. 
The temperaments and the tastes of men are originally 
different, one from another. God has made them, by 
their mental and physical structure, for particular 
spheres of exertion, thus giving a beautiful variety to 
human existence, and to the pursuits of men. Some 
are formed to occupy one department of his earthly 
providence, and others an entirely different one. Cow- 
per could no more be a lawyer or public man, when he 
was made and preconjigured for a poet, than the indi- 
vidual we once heard of was destined to be a poet, 
who was able to compose but a single couplet in all his 
life, and that only in the unconscious hours of sleep. 
Let not then the providence of God be arraigned, by 
which each one will. 

"fall 
Just in the niche he was ordained to fill." 

The direction of Brainard's genius appeared in the 
poetic creations which he was meditating, during his 
residence in Middletown. These resulted in several of 
his smaller printed poems. He also prepared, at the 
same period, several pieces for a literary paper, con- 
ducted by Cornelius Tuthill, Esq., one of the earlier 
editors of the " Christian Spectator." The paper was 
published at New Haven, and called, " The Micro- 
scope." The humorous story of Gabriel Gap, in that 
publication, was from the pen of Brainard, though he 
left it unfinished. 

The profession of law was thus abandoned for the 
no less trying, and far more precarious career, of the 



MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. XIU 

literary adventurer. But the latter was the pursuit of 
his choice, and though he seemed not to have any 
brilliant anticipations at the commencement, he attained 
to a distinction which only sterling talents could have 
commanded. For a portion of his task as an editor 
of a weekly newspaper, it has been supposed that 
neither his temper, nor his training, was fitted. It 
is true that he had no fondness for political asperity 
and wrangling. For such times he was not born, un- 
less possibly to allay them, by his pacific and candid 
spirit. He could not with comfort to himself mingle 
in the din of such a controversy. But it may well be 
questioned, whether too slight an estimate has not 
sometimes been put upon his capacity, to conduct the 
editorial department of such a journal as he undertook, 
even in its political discussions. The character of the 
matter which actually appeared in " The Mirror," is 
not, in every case, the true test of his ability. He was 
capable of greater originality of thought, and compre- 
hensiveness of views, on the topics alluded to, than the 
first naked aspect of things would indicate. We are 
assured by competent testimony, that labored and able 
political articles were withheld from publication, owing 
to causes over which he had little control. It is not, 
perhaps, necessary to detail the facts, but they cer- 
tainly go far to exculpate him from the charge of levity, 
or weakness, in conducting the editorial department of 
his paper. Prudential considerations were suffered to 
have sway, at the expense of his reputation for politi- 
cal tact and foresight. The only substitutes for the 



XIV MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. 

articles referred to, were such brief and tame pieces as 
he could prepare; after the best and almost only hours 
for composition had passed by. This circumstance, 
together with the consciousness that the paper was ill 
sustained in respect to its patronage, was sufficiently 
discouraging to a person, whose sensibilities were as 
acute as those of Brainard's. It accounts also for the 
frequent turns of mental depression which marked his 
latter years, — heightened, indeed, by that frequent 
and mortifying concomitant of genius, — slender pecu- 
niary means. 

In whatever pertained to the literary portion of his 
paper, he was certainly at home. Hence his notices 
of new works were interesting and able. He possessed 
the urbanity and frankness to give utterance to his 
sense of intellectual beauty, whenever he perceived 
any traces of it in the authors on whom he commented. 
In the language of Mr. Whittier, who appreciated his 
character in this particular, with the kindred temper 
of a poet and a philanthropist: "there was too much 
gentleness in his nature, too much charity for the 
offending, and too much modesty in his own pretensions, 
to allow any rudeness of criticism, or severity of cen- 
sure. His writings in the "Connecticut Mirror," are 
uniformly gentlemanly and good natured. It is impos-^ 
sible to discover in them any thing like malice or 
wantonness of satire. He was the first to award due 
praise to his literary brethren. His criticisms v/ere 
those of a man willing to lend his fine ear to the har- 
monies of poetry, and his clear, healthful eye to the 



MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. XV 

light of intellectual beauty, wherever these were to be 
seen or heard. 

Of his poetic pieces in "The Mirror," there was 
but one opinion. They were well received, and de- 
served the tribute of praise which was accorded by 
many a reader. The reputation which he earned was 
not, however, instantaneous. He at first became a 
favorite in a circle of friends, and by them his talents 
were known and somewhat appreciated. Still, the 
impression which he was calculated to make on their 
minds, was not fully felt, until certain poems of a 
superior order came out. The lines " On the birthday 
of Washington," beginning 

" Behold the mossed cornered-stone dropped from the wall," 

and some others, burst on their view, like brilliant 
meteors, surprising and enchanting them. After this, 
it was not long before he was hcmored by the liiterary 
part of the community generally, and by all who 
took an interest in the productions of native genius; 
and every number of " The Mirror" was seized with 
avidity by men, women, and children, to see if it con- 
tained any of Brainard's poetry. It is on these poetic 
eJETusions that his claims to the regard of future times 
will principally rest. For however happy he may 
have been in several of his prose compositions, the 
public know him mostly as a poet, and in that light 
will he here be chiefly viewed. The few criticisms 
which we shall attempt in respect to his poetry will 
appear in the sequel. In this part of our task, our 



XVI MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. 

only design was to present the few incidents of his life, 
and sketch the striking points of his general character. 
We have already seen Brainard in the commence- 
ment of his literary career, as an editor, and as a wri- 
ter of poetry. Short as that career was, extending 
only to six years, it was nevertheless important to his 
own fame, and to his country's intellectual wealth. 
He seems to have availed himself of his opportunities 
for observation to good effect, and was not unversed in 
the learning of books. He culled every variety of 
sweet that lay in his path, and looked on nature and 
man, with the eye of a poet, and to subserve a poet's 
purposes. All our real bards, men renowned in song, 
have proved themselves to be men of knowledge. 
Those undying forms of thought which they put forth, 
are the products of capacious, well-stored, far-reaching 
intellects. They may not be all scholars, in the rigid 
and collegiate sense of the word, but they are men of 
information and intellectual power. That which they 
write is stamped with the seal of truth and adherence 
to nature, and shows the vestiges of study and research 
of some kind. Thus Brainard had his rich intellectual 
acquisitions ; but they were not gathered in the ordi- 
nary way of the student, ever bending over his books, 
and observing nightly vigils. He was " one of those 
men, who," as a friend that well knew him remarked, 
" love to lie on their backs, and see what they can 
think.'* Brainard acquired his rich and beautiful intel- 
lectual stores somewhat in this manner. And he 
had frequent occasion to lay them under contribution, 



MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. XVU 

in the preparation of poems for his paper. These 
pieces, as already remarked, were eagerly read, and 
highly commended. They established his fame as a 
poet, and drew him forth from the retirement which 
he seemed to love so well. Praise, however, appa- 
rently excites no emotions of vanity in his bosom, and 
he ever retired thither for the sweetest solace he found 
or desired on earth. Several of the pieces, however, 
as they were composed in the hurry, and under the 
embarrassments incident to his profession as an editor, 
received less care and polish than should have been 
bestowed upon them, but they all showed a ready and 
skillful hand, and that only leisure was wanting to their 
perfection. Negligence, in some instances, was but 
too natural under these circumstances, and taste could 
not always be consulted or indulged. 

Three vears sufficed to furnish a small volume of 
the poetry thus contributed to " The Mirror," or that 
remained by him unprinted. It was published early 
in the year 1825. It was accompanied by a very brief 
and unpretending introduction, and left to find its way 
by its own merits, into the hearts and minds of his 
countrymen.* The naivete with which it was commit- 
ted to their attention, was answered by a generous and 

*The Introduction to the volume was as follows : — " The author of the 
following pieces has been induced to publish them in a book, from con- 
siderations which cannot be interesting to the public. Many of these 
little poems have been printed in the Connecticut Mirror ; and others are 
just fit to keep them company. No apologies are made, and no criticisms 
deprecated. The commonplace story of the importunities of friends, 
though it had its share in the publication, is not insisted upon ; but the 
vanity of the author, if others choose to call it such, is a natural motive, 



XVIU MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. 

general approval of its contents. Our ablest periodi- 
cal literature, in one instance at least,* spoke in tones 
of approbation and encouragement, stating, however, 
such exceptions to their general good opinion, as judi- 
cious criticism is always expected to put forth. No 
other literary effort followed the preparation of this 
volume, except other fugitive pieces, which, together 
with the former, were collected in a volume published 
in 1832, by Mr. Goodsell. 

But the voice of the bard was destined ere long to 
be hushed in the silence of death. Prematurely was 
he called (we speak with deference to the divine 
arrangements,) to resign life with all its sweets and its 
fame, into the hand of the Giver. His health had 
begun to decline previously to the spring of 1827, at 
which period he retired from his professional labors, 
though not with a design to relinquish them finally. 
He sought repose in his native town, where the assi- 
duities of friendship and affection, so grateful in sick- 
ness and depression, were bestowed and enjoyed, in a 
high degree. But nothing could arrest the progress 
of the disease with which he was visited. It proved 
to be consumption, that surest precursor of death, 
though often slow in its work, and flattering in its 



and the hope of ' making a little something by it,' is an honest acknowl- 
edgment, if it is a poor excuse." The motto of the title-page was as 
quaint,— 

" Some said, ' John, print it ; ' others said ' Not so j' 
Some said ' It might do good 5' others said ' No.' " 
' Bunyan's Apology. 

* North American Review. 



MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. XlX 

symptoms. Resort was had in summer to a short resi- 
dence on Long Island. No material relief, however, 
was afforded by the excursion, and he was forced to 
abandon the idea of returning to Hartford, and resum- 
ing the duties of editorship. He lingered till the 26th 
of September the following year, (1828,) when he 
cheerfully departed to his rest. During this period of 
physical debility and decay, he exerted, as usual, his 
mental powers in the composition of several short, but 
beautiful poems, which were published in " The Mir- 
ror." The circumstances of his sickness and death 
were detailed at the time by the Rev. Mr. M'Ewen, 
pastor of the church to which Brainard belonged, in a 
letter to the Rev. Dr. Hawes, ofHartford. We adopt 
it from Mr. Whittier's " Sketch of Brainard's Life" 
prefixed to Goodsell's edition of his " Literary Re- 
mains." 

" In my first visit to him, two or three months be- 
fore his death, he said : ' I am sick and near death, 
and I ought not to be too confident how I should act 
or feel had I a prospect of health and the worldly 
pleasures and prosperity which it would offer. But if 
I know myself I would, were I well, devote my life 
to the service of Jesus Christ.' I stated some of the 
main doctrines of Christianity. ' These are Scripture,' 
he said, ' they are true and delightful to me. The 
plan of salvation in the Gospel is all that I wish for; — 
it fills me with wonder and gratitude ; and makes the 
prospect of death not only peaceful but joyful. My 
salvation,' he continued, * is not to be effected by a pro- 



XX MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. 

fession of religion ; but when I read Christ's require- 
ments, and look round on my friends and acquaintan- 
ces, I cannot be content without performing this public 
duty.' He was propounded, and in due time, pale 
and feeble, yet manifestly with mental joy and sereni- 
ty, he came to the house of God, professed his faith, 
and was baptized and entered into covenant with God 
and his people. The next Sabbath the Lord's Supper 
was administered. It was wet, and he could not be 
out. His disappointment was great. A few friends 
went to his room and communed with him there in this 
ordinance. While his father's family and others, dur- 
ing the scene, were dissolved in tears, he sat with dig- 
nity and composure, absorbed in the interesting cere- 
mony in which he was engaged. In my last interview 
with him, after he was, at his own request, left alone 
with me, he said : ' I wish not to be deceived about 
my state, — but I am not in the usual condition to try 
myself. No one abuses a sick man, — every thing 
around me is sympathy and kindness. I used to be 
angry when people spoke what was true of me. I 
have now no resentment. I can forgive all, and pray, 
I think, for the salvation of all. I am not tried with 
pain. I have hardly any outward trial.' ' But,' said 
I, 'you have one great trial, — you must soon part 
with life :' 'And I am willing,' he replied. 'The 
Gospel makes my prospect delightful. God is a God 
of truth, and I think I am reconciled to him.' I saw 
him no more, but was told that he died in peace." 
It may be interesting to learn a few other particu- 



MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. XXI 

lars respecting the poet, during his last illness. To 
this end, we are happy to have it in our power to intro- 
duce a short account, furnished by a gentleman in 
Hartford, a friend and acquaintance of Brainard's, who 
called on him, eight or ten days before the death of 
the latter. This gentleman had previously written 
him during his sickness, and accompanied the letter by 
a copy of " Wolfe's Remains." We give the account 
as it was detailed in conversation. 

"I called at Judge Brainard's, and on inquiry for 
John was shown unannounced into his room, or rather 
the parlour where he was, — and not expecting to find 
him there. Of course both parties were taken by sur- 
prise. Brainard was sitting in the middle of the room, 
dressed in his usual attire, and with his hat on and his 
cane near by. In his lap, was a large old-fashioned 
family Bible lying open, in the reading of which he 
was entirely absorbed, and from which his attention 
was withdrawn only by my entrance. Immediately 
after his recognition of me, and the usual greeting, he 
said ' he had received the letter which I had addressed 
to him, with the accompanying volume which had been 
to him like a draught of water to a thirsty man.' He 
then almost immediately spoke of his* religious views 
and feelings, — apologizing for his seeming abruptness 
in introducing the topic of religion, by a reference to 
his then feeble condition, (he could speak only in a 
whisper,) and to the opinion now entertained by him, 
that this was ' the only subject.' Pointing to the Bible, 
he spoke of the great comfort and support he there 



XXn MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. 

found, and with much earnestness expressed his con- 
fident hope, that not only myself, but also his other 
familiar friends at Hartford, would 'get right,' and 
derive from that book the same consolation which it 
now afforded him. He said he suffered no bodily 
pain,* — none worthy of a thought ;— that he had no 
apprehension of death, — that he indeed longed, and was 
impatient to depart. In expressing a wish for an early 
dismissal from life, he desired to avoid a sinful impa- 
tience, — but that the earliest time, so that it was God's 
time, would be to him most welcome. I gathered from 
his remarks, that his time was divided between his Bible 
and the thoughts and meditations it inspired, and the 
garden where he occasionally sat, and breathed the 
fresh air. His sister, who, on my entrance, had cau- 
tioned me not to let her brother become exhausted by 
too much conversation, here, for the second or third 
time, appeared at the door of the apartment, with so 
much anxiety depicted on her countenance, that her 
solicitude could not be mistaken nor disregarded, not- 
withstanding the earnest wish manifested by her brother 
(who now for the first and only time spoke aloud) that 
my stay might be prolonged. Fearing, therefore, the 
effect on him of a longer interview, I here took my 
leave ; and a short week or two brought Brainard the 
release from life which he so earnestly desired." 
In joining the church, as narrated by Mr. M'Ewen 

* The impression of the family was, that he had, at times, suffered 
much. If so, his religious views, hopes, and aspirations had probably 
rendered him superior to the usual distressing accompaniments of disease. 



MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. XXlll 

above, it may be added, as we learn, that Brainard 
being too feeble to go to church and remain through 
the ordinary services, consequently arrived at and 
entered the sanctuary, when these were nearly or 
quite through. Every one present (literally, almost,) 
knew him, — the occasion of his coming was under- 
stood, — and when he appeared, pale, feeble, ema- 
ciated, and trembling in consequence of his extreme 
debility, the sensation it produced was at once appa- 
rent throughout the whole assembly. There seemed 
to be an instinctive homage paid to the grace of God 
in him; or perhaps the fact shows, how readily a 
refined Christian community sympathizes with genius 
and virtue destined to an early tomb. 

The lively grief of the reading community, as well 
as of his friends in particular, attested their sense of 
the loss which had been experienced. He had evi- 
dently been regarded with great favor, and it was no 
unnatural feeling to dwell, with fond pensiveness, on 
the memory of one who had often contributed to their 
serious and innocent gratification. Thus he shone 
among the 

" Bright fonns we sorrowing weep, 
So fleet they passed away to die," 

and the lovers of song had only the mournful satisfac- 
tion of expressing their regard for departed excel- 
lence. His death was extensively lamented, and many 
felt that one had fallen who had already achieved not 
a little, and promised still more, in his devotion to a 
delightful art. 



XXIV MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. 

Several traits of Brainard's character have inciden- 
tally appeared already; but we should do him injus- 
tice not to give more prominence to a few of its fea- 
tures. His mind, naturally tender and susceptible in 
a high degree, was given to pensive thought ; and in his 
riper years its developments amounted at times, to mel- 
ancholy and depression. Whether this is to be attribu- 
ted to a cause which has been publicly stated, — a 
cause which often withers the affections of the young 
heart, — we know not. If that cause existed, it was 
unknown to his immediate relatives. But whatever 
may have been the occasion of the characteristic we 
speak of, the latter was an acknowledged reality, and 
even in his poetry itself, the Jones of a deeply sad 
spirit often break forth. The "Edinburgh Review," 
in one instance, attaches to this character of his poetry, 
the epithets of " melancholy" and " wayward," and 
quotes as an example, the touching stanzas beginning 
the line 

" The dead leaves strew the forest walk." 

A friend and admirer of the poet remarked to us, 
that he appeared as one, who, notwithstanding the fre- 
quent gayety of his strains, " was disposed to sport 
with his own feelings." The sadness which he felt 
within could not be better thrown off, or parried, than 
by indulging in an external gayety. Still there were 
bright sunny spots in his life, an innocent joyousness 
was not an entire stranger to his bosom, and even im- 
mersed, as he often was, in dark and sombre thoughts, 
he never became moody and misanthropic. In the 



MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. XXV 

language of another, "disheartened and despondent 
as we know Brainard was, looking out upon the world 
with an eye that saw every thing glowing with pris- 
matic beauty, yet mournfully feeling that this beauty 
was not made for him, — still, when he met a friend, 
the cloud passed instantly from his brow, a smile was 
on his lips, and words of merriment and levity broke 
from his tongue. It was apparent that for the mo- 
ment, he obtained relief from his painful musings in 
the play of a humorous fancy, — a laugh seemed to 
beguile his sorrow, — a joke to scare back into their 
recesses, the demons that preyed upon his bosom. 
Those only who knew him well, can understand how 
interesting was this light of his mind, breaking out 
amid the clouds and darkness which encompassed it." 
We may add to the above, that he possessed a keen 
perception of the humorous and ridiculous, — that he 
had the art of seizing on those points of character in 
others, which constituted their foibles, as well as 
their excellences, — that his mode of expression, like the 
association of his ideas, was at once singular and 
engaging, — and hence on these several accounts, he 
could inspire in the minds of a circle, emotions of 
mirth and gayety, apparently the most opposite to 
those with which his own mind was so frequently 
occupied. 

It is not surprising, then, that he was eminently 
formed for society, and the enjoyment of its innocent 
festivities and delights, notwithstanding the retiring 
modesty and the keen sensitiveness by which he was 



XXVI MEMOIR OF BEAINARD. 

distinguished. " His habits of self-reliance," says 
Mr. Whittier, " of a gentle retirement into the calm 
beauty of his own mind, rendered him, in a measure, 
indifferent to the opinion of the world. Yet he loved 
society, — the society of the gifted and intellectual, — 
and of those who had become accustomed to his pecu- 
liarities of manner and feeling, who could appreciate 
his merit, or relish his good-natured jests, and 'mocks, 
and knaveries,' and laugh with him at what he con- 
sidered the ludicrous eagerness of the multitude after 
the vanities of existence. In larger and mixed circles, 
his peculiar sensitiveness was a frequent cause of un- 
happiness. Amidst his gayety and humor, a word 
spoken inadvertently, — some unmeaning gesture, — 
some casual inattention or unlucky oversight checked 
at once the free flow of his sprightly conversation, — 
the jest died upon his lips, — and the melancholy 
which had been lifted from his heart fell again with 
increased heaviness." 

There was a quiet sportiveness and humor about 
Brainard, which rendered him a highly agreeable com- 
panion, and threw a charm over the circles in which he 
visited. It arose at times into wit of a keen and bril- 
liant character. This, his writings also sufficiently 
show. It is no matter of surprise that he was a favor- 
ite in company, or peculiarly interesting in conversa- 
tion, to his intimate friends. We have heard of spe- 
cimens of his lively and facetious turn, one of which 
we will take the liberty to record. In his native place, 
we believe it was, he attended, on some occasion^ a 



MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. XXVll 

meeting which was successively addressed by two 
preachers, who claimed to be divinely moved, in the 
exercise of their gifts. The first one was brief, and 
in what he said seemed to defer to his brother, as more 
likely to fulfil the expectations of the audience. The 
other attempted much more, but proceeded with diffi- 
culty. Indeed, he several times offered the apology, 
in rather quaint phrase, that his mind was imprisoned. 
At the close of the services, as the people retired, it 
was natural that the. conversation should turn on the 
speakers. It was observed by one, that the latter 
preacher succeeded but indifferently. " You know^'* 
replied a bystander, " that he complained of the im- 
prisonment of his mind." At this moment Brainard 
came up, and, on hearing the conversation, remarked, 
in his ready and piquant manner, that " the preacher's 
mind might have easily sworn out.'' The readiness of 
his wit was apparent in his writings, a single instance 
of which we will adduce. The following appears in 
*' The Mirror" of July 5, 1824, as a retort upon one 
of his critics : " We observe a criticism in the ' Vil- 
lage Record,' on some verses headed ' The Deep,' in 
which the writer says, ' the word brine has no more 
business in sentimental poetry, than a pig in a par. 
lour. We suspect the writer, though his piece is da- 
ted Philadelphia, lives at a greater distance from the 
sea ; and has got his ideas of the salt water frdm his 
father's pork barrel." 

The seeming severity, as well as the wit of the 
above stricture, reminds us to say, that such was not 



XXVlll MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. 

the tone which he held generally towards the criti- 
cisms bestowed upon his pieces. He submitted to 
just and candid remarks upon his performances, with 
perfect good-nature. As this was a striking trait of 
his character, connected with his humble opinion of 
his own performances, it deserves some illustration. 
In a V communication to "The Mirror" of Nov. 10, 
1828, by a Lady, the writer says, — "It is too often 
the fault of authors that they are unwilling to submit 
to criticism, — still less to the alterations of others. 
That the subject of this article (Brainard) was supe- 
rior to this, and diffident of his own abilities, appears 
in a letter to the (then) editor of ' The Mirror,' Mr. 
Lincoln, dated Jan. 1822, in which Brainard says, 'I 
received yours this morning, and in reading it, had to 
regret that you should have found it necessary to offer 
the slightest apology, on account of the very proper 
and necessary alterations in the lines I sent you. For, 
if I remember right, you was not only authorized, but 
requested to make such use of them as would best 
answer the purposes of " The Mirror." From the 
solemn tone of your letter, I feared you was a hypo- 
chondriac, or that you was not so well acquainted 
with me as I could wish. Why, my dear Lincoln, 
when you was about it, did you not apologize for 
thinking me a conceited fool, who knows his verses 
are none of the best, and yet quarrels with his friend 
for coming to the same conclusion. Upon my word, I 
did not expect to see so much of them printed as I 
found in your last Mirror.'" The writer adds, — 



MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. XXIX 

"There is something which makes us feel, as if it 
were almost sacrilege to bring forward to the public, 
what was only designed for the private eye of friend- 
ship, but it also seems as if the public had a kind of 
property in the private thoughts of men of genius ; 
and when we find talents united with modesty, and 
good-humor, we are constrained to love, when we 
before admired." 

In respect to other features of his character, we have 
the authority of a writer in the "Boston Statesman," 
of 1828, (as quoted by Mr. Whittier,) a gentleman 
intimately acquainted with the poet, who cleverly ob- 
serves as follows. " Brainard did not make much show 
in the world. He was an unassuming and unambitious 
man, — but he had talents which should have made 
him our pride. They were not showy or dazzling, — 
and perhaps that is the reason that the general eye 
did not rest upon him, — but he had a keen discrimi- 
nating susceptibility, and a taste exquisitely refined 

and true Brainard had no enemies. It was 

not that his character was negative, or his courtesy 
universal. There was a directness in his manner, 
and a plain-spoken earnestness in his address, which 
could never have been wanting in proper discrimina- 
tion. He would never have compromised with the 
unworthy for their good opinion. But it was his truth, 
— his fine, open, ingenuous truth, — bound up with a 
character of great purity and benevolence, which won 
love for him. I never met a man of whom all men 
spoke so well. I fear I never shall. When I was 



XXX MEMQIR OF BRAINARD. 

introduced to him he took me aside and talked with 
me for an hour. I shall never forget that conversa- 
tion. He made no commonplace remarks. He would 
not talk of himself, though I tried to lead him to it. 
He took a high intellectual tone, and I never have 
heard its beauty or originality equalled. He knew 
wonderfully well the secrets of mental relish and 
development ; and had evidently examined himself 
till he had grown fond, as every one must who does 
it, of a quiet, contemplative self-cultivating life." 
But, however his habitual aspirations may have been 
after this refined enjoyment, he still greatly delighted 
in the visible and palpable of human life. In what- 
ever manner these different traits may be reconciled, 
or accounted for, as meeting in the same subject, yet 
it is certain that no man ever enjoyed more than he 
did the every-day bustle of the world. He loved to 
mix with it, and in it, and cared not if he was borne 
along, for a time, in its current. A brigade review, 
with its exhilarating sights, sounds, and cheer, seemed 
to give him, in company with a few friends, as unso- 
phisticated a feeling of pleasure, as it did to the 
veriest boy on the ground. 

The writer above quoted, notices the poet in his 
social hours. " The first time I ever saw him, I met 
him in a gay and fashionable circle. He was pointed 
out to me as the poet Brainard. A plain, ordiiiary 
looking individual, careless in his dress, and appa- 
rently without the least outward claim to the attention 
of those who value such advantages. But there was 



MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. XXXI 

no person there, so much or so flatteringly attended to. 
He was among those who saw him every day and 
knew him familiarly ; and I almost envied him, as he 
went round, the unqualified kindness and even affec- 
tion, with which every bright girl and every mother in 
the room received him. He was evidently the idol, 
not only of the poetry loving and gentler sex, — but 
also of the young men who were about him, — an 
evidence of worth, let me say, which is as high as it 
is uncommon." 

The susceptibility and benevolence of his heart, 
were apparent to the view of all who were acquainted 
with him. To illustrate his character, in this respect, 
we are happy to furnish the following from a manu- 
script which has been put into our hands, drawn up 
by an intimate friend of the poet. "I have several 
times," he says, "attempted it," (that is, to portray 
the character of Brainard,) " either for my own amuse- 
ment, or the gratification of others, and have succeed- 
ed only in sketching a sort of panegyric of any amia- 
ble, talented, and refined gentleman. Still he was a 
man of many distinctive characteristics. They were 
those traits, however, which pleased by their beauty, 
rather than astonished by their obtrusive boldness. 
Indeed, his governing quality, and that which mellowed 
the light and shade of all the rest, was a delicate sen- 
sibiUty. It was not, however, that morbid suscepti- 
bility to malevolent impressions, which some cultivate 
for effect, — a compound of sullenness and misan- 
thropy, — a malignant excrescence, that deforms all 



XXXll MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. 

the beautiful proportions which the soul brought from 
the hands of its Creator ; but it was the offspring of 
benevolence rather, which delighted in the happiness, 
and was pained by the misery of any sentient being in 
the universe. It is true it could ill bear the shocks to 
which it was exposed in this jostling and selfish world ; 
but it rarely led him to murmur at the causes of his 
own unhappiness, or excited hostility against the au- 
thors of ill to him. He bore his own griefs in silence, 
whatever they were, but was aroused to active sym- 
pathy whenever he saw his fellow-men, or even a brute 

suffer." 

" I first met him while he resided in Middletown. 
I accompanied a sister of mine, while making an af- 
ternoon call on Miss S , who, you know, was 

somewhat celebrated for her beauty and wit. There 
were several ladies in the room when we entered. 
Brainard was there, the soul and spirit of the conver- 
sation. He seemed delighted, and was in his happiest 
mood. Of course none present could fail to be de- 
lighted in him. Through awkwardness, or some 
other cause, I had taken a seat somewhat by myfeelf, 
and being much younger than the rest, was very 
naturally neglected. The embarrassment of my sit- 
uation did not long escape the observation of Brainard. 
He left the circle of beauty and brilliant conversation, 
and in the kindest and most affectionate manner ad- 
dressed to me such conversation as was calculated to 
please one of my age. You may be sure I was inter- 
ested. It was not long before he was again the centre 



MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. XXXlll 

of attraction, and his benevolent face lighted up with 
peculiar joy when he found my embarrassment re- 
moved, and me a sharer in the conversation of that 
pleasant circle of friends. Still he did not neglect 
me, nor would he allow others to do so. But by often 
addressing me he seemed to say, ' we may all be 
happy, but the ease and happiness of my young friend 
must not be neglected.' On parting, his cordial invi- 
tation to call on him, and make use of his hospitality 
while I remained in town, was fully in keeping with 
his kindness during our short interview. In all this 
there was nothing of that patronizing air, which is so 
commonly apparent when men offer politeness tft those 
younger than themselves ; but just enough deference 
to my opinion to gratify self-love. In short, there was 
just that tact which made me feel pleased with myself, 
and grateful to him." 

To the general beauty of his character, we add the 
testimony of an accomplished female author, whose 
representation is no less beautiful than just. We quote 
it from Mr. Whittier's "Sketch." "To the Intel- 
lectual power and poetical eminence of Mr. Brainard, 
the public will undoubtedly do justice. But those who 
knew and valued him as a friend, can bear testimony 
to the intrinsic excellences of his character. They 
were admitted with a generous freedom into the sanc- 
tuary of his soul, and saw those fountains of deep and 
disinterested feelings which were hidden from casual 
observation. Friendship was not in him a modification 
of selfishness, lightly conceived, and as lightly dis- 
3 



XXXIV MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. 

solved. His sentiments respecting it were formed on 
the noble models of ancient story ; and he proved him- 
self capable of its delicate perceptions, and its undevi- 
ating integrities. His heart had an aptitude both for 
its confidential interchange, and its sacred responsibili- 
ties. In his intercourse with society, he exhibited 
neither the pride of genius, nor the pedantry of knowl- 
edge. To the critic he might have appeared deficient 
in personal dignity. So humbly did he think of him- 
self, and his own attainments, that the voice of appro- 
bation and kindness seemed necessary to assure his 
spirits, and even to sustain his perseverance in the la- 
bors of literature. Possessed both of genuine wit, and 
of that playful humor which rendered his company 
sought and admired, he never trifled with the feelings 
of others, or aimed to shine at their expense. Hence 
he expected the same regard to his own mental com- 
fort, and was exceedingly vulnerable to the careless 
jest, or to the chillness of reserve. 

" It did not require the eye of intimacy to discover 
that he was endowed with an acute sensibility. This 
received early nurture and example in the bosom of 
most affectionate relatives. The endearing associa- 
tions connected with his paternal mansion, preserved 
their freshness and force, long after he ceased to be an 

inmate there The efforts which he 

continually put forth during his intercourse with man- 
kind, to conceal his extreme susceptibility, sometimes 
gave to his manners the semblance of levity. Hence 
he was liable to misconstruction, and a consciousness 



MEMOIR OF BRAINARiy. XXXV 

of this, by inducing occasional melancholy and seclu- 
sion, threw him still further from those sympathies for 
which his affectionate spirit languished. Still it can- 
not be said that his sensibility had a morbid tendency. 
It shrank indeed, like the Mimosa, but it had no worm 
at its root. Its gushings forth were in admiration of 
the charms of nature, and in benevolence to the hum- 
blest creature ; to the poor child in the street, and to 
the forest bird. It had affinity with love to God, and 
with good-will to man. Had his life been prolonged, 
and he permitted to encircle with the beautiful domestic 
charities a household hearth of his own, the true ex- 
cellences of his heart would have gained more perfect 
illustration. It possessed a simplicity of trusting con- 
fidence, a fulness of tender and enduring affection, 
which would there have found a free scope and legiti- 
mate action. There he might have worn as a crown, 
that exquisite sensibility, which among proud and lofty 
spirits, he covered as a blemish, or shrank from as a 
reproach. But it pleased the Almighty early to trans- 
fer him where loneliness can no longer settle as a cloud 
over his soul, nor the coarse enginery which earth 
employs jar against its harp-strings, and obstruct its 
melody." 

The social qualities of Brainard rendered him de- 
servedly popular. He was formed for friendship, — 
he had a keen relish of its pleasures, and a nice dis- 
cernment of the influences by which it might be im- 
proved and perpetuated. His heart was in unison 
with truth, nature, and beauty. Sweet voices, glad 



XXXVl MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. 

looks, the beaming of intelligence, the throbbings of 
affection, home, kindred, country, the glorious creation, 
all gave him the purest delight, and drew responses 
from every chord of his heart and harp. He was 
ardent and devoted in his personal attachments, and it 
is possible that the description of the poet might occa- 
sionally be applied to him ; 

" Then must you speak 
Of one that loved, not wisely, but too well." 

"An affection" (we believe it is the language of 
Hazlitt) " indulged to excess, or carried beyond 
what the position of the parties, or the worth of the 
regarded warrants, or excited to render superfluous 
service, is, in the long run, destructive of its existence, 
and injurious to the peace of those indulging it, in 
pther things beside love and friendship." If, occasion- 
ally, Brainard was in danger of being carried, in his 
attachments, beyond the boundaries of prudence, this 
fact only betrayed the exuberant feelings of his fond 
and confiding nature. 

Mr. Brainard professed the hopes, as he had alst 
studied and believed the truths, of Christianity. His- 
sickness and death-bed scene before described, are well 
adapted to impress his readers on that point. The les- 
sons of adversity and of life's trials had not been lost 
upon him. They softened and refined his spirit 
through divine grace, and prepared it, we trust, for 
its entrance upon a brighter sphere. The hallowing 
process could not but be observed with much interest. 
The soul's disorders through sin are remedied often 



MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. XXXVll 

by the instrumentalities of the body's sufferings. And, 
transformed by the Spirit of holiness into the divine 
image, it gathers up its energies to meet the crisis of 
its fate, with cheerful and blest submission to the Sove- 
reign Disposer. Thus it was with Brainard, as it has 
been with other believers. They are invigorated 
within, as they decay without. They grow spiritual, 
as the body is more inert. They are made contented, 
as their corporeal infirmities abound. Their spirits 
become joyful,^ as their senses are rendered incapable 
of gratification. And. glory is felt to be nearer, as 
that greatest earthly trial approaches, — the dissolu- 
tion of the body. This is the paradox of a triumph- 
ing Christianity. Let none of the choice spirits of 
the world be left to doubt, that the Gospel can do that 
for them, which it did for Brainard, — which it has done 
for others endowed with all the gifts, and exposed to 
all the temptations, of genius. 

The person of Brainard was somewhat below the 
ordinary size. The bland feelings of his heart, as well 
as his intelligence, beamed from his eye, as they were 
also expressed in the lineaments of his countenance 
generally. In the intercourse of friendship, and in the 
lively sallies of wit, his face was wont to glow with a 
fine expression. There was a carelessness about his 
personal appearance and costume, — his attitudes and 
walk, — which, though not obnoxious to animadversion, 
showed the abstractedness of the poet and the man of 
thought. His sensitiveness was particularly manifest- 
ed by any allusion to his size. Little as such a cir- 



XXXVlll MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. 

cumstance deserved consideration or notice on his part, 
it was a peculiarity of the man, that he seemed to wish 
it had been otherwise. We should find it difficult, 
were we to undertake it, to account for the whims of 
intellectual men ; and these things are mentioned, only 
because the public regard any thing as interesting, 
which illustrates the character of a favorite. 

Brainard was in the habit of rapid composition. 
This was in agreement with the character of his mind, 
and was aided by the circumstances in which he was 
led to write his poems. The necessity of filling some 
column or part of a column of his paper with verses, 
prompted to the composition of most of his pieces, and 
it was hence almost unavoidable that he should write 
in haste, and often in a state of mind adverse to poet- 
ical inspiration. The ease, however, with which he 
poured out his thoughts on paper, made some amends 
for this disadvantage. In any place, and in any situ- 
ation, it is understood, he could give audience to the 
whisper of his Muse. * 

The above is the substance of what we have been 
able to gather of the history and character of Brainard, 

* A single anecdote in illustration. A friend had long solicited Brainard 
to write for him a piece of poetry for tlie Commonplace Book of a young 
lady ; from which, on some plea, he had always excused himself. One 
■wintry day he again entered the editor's room, with the identical album 
in hand. Brainard was shivering with cold ; there were only a few ex- 
hausted embers on the hearth, and no wood in the room. After a few mo- 
ments, he turned to his friend and said ; " I tell you what : if you will run 
up stairs and bring me down an arm-full of wood. 111 write for you." The 
wood was in the garret, up two flights of stairs ; but the book was handed 
to Brainard, and oil' went the friend for his burden, glad in any way to 



MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. XXXIX 

from published records, and from the communications 
of private friendship and acquaintanceship. It might 
be a matter of regret, that a larger number of inci- 
dents pertaining to his life, and a fuller delineation of 
his intellect, disposition, and habits, could not be pre. 
sented in this place, were it not true, that the interest 
of literary biography depends but in part on the 
abundance of the materials thus spread out before the 
public eye. We look not for advantage and startling 
incidents, in the life of a mere poet or literary man. 
We can well dispense also with many offerings, in the 
shape of encomium, and the enthusiastic admiration 
of friends, to his hallowed memory. We love chiefly 
to contemplate him in his writings, — to learn the man 
and his story there. Sometimes, when a bright and 
beautiful luminary has blazed in the intellectual hori- 
zon, we were disappointed, as in the case of Shaks- 
peare, at the meagre details of the history of its course. 
We would trace it from its rising to its setting, and 
mark all its phases and variations, with the fondness of 
an idolatrous veneration ; and satisfy our minds, how 
like or unlike it was, to any thing that ever attracted 
the view of mankind, before or since. It may also 
add somewhat to the admiration of genius, to be able 
to learn, for instance, the perilous adventures of a 

secure the poetry. He had hardly returned before Brainard had completed 
the beautiful lines commencing, " See to your book, young lady."' 

We know, also, that some portion of the lines on Connecticut River 
(which originally appeared as " New- Year's Verses," with the caption, 
*' The compliments of the Year 1827 to the Connecticut River,") went to 
the compositor in fragments of a few lines, as he was waiting for copy. 



Xl MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. 

Camoens, swimming from a shipwreck, with his im- 
mortal epic borne in his hand above the waves, — the 
heroic exploits, and martyr-like sufferings, of a Cer- 
vantes in Algerine captivity, — or the wayward fortunes 
of a Tasso, in imprisonment, prolonged disease and dis- 
appointed love. Still, in the majority of cases, we are 
contented to learn the better part of the writer in his 
works. Genuine talent stamps upon these its own 
features. The passions and dispositions of the heart 
stand forth embodied and living in the portraitures of 
the pen. There we must learn much of Brainard. 

It is generally true, that excellence in any depart- 
ment of intellectual effort, is sooner or later recognised, 
on the part of those before whom it is exhibited. This 
is the fact in regard to poetry, perhaps, even in a 
greater degree than in any other species of writing. 
The genuine strains of the muse readily find a response 
in the minds of most men. They are laid up in the 
memories, and rehearsed from the lips of thousands. 
There may, sometimes, be a tardiness in the public, as 
in the case of Shakspeare and Milton, in awarding its 
approbation ; but that approbation will come at length, 
and make ample amends for its temporary injustice, by 
its increased and more lasting incense. Wherever a 
true bard appears, the public will become interested in 
him. He cannot pour forth the sweet voice of song, 
and long remain unheard — unanswered. Its echoes 
will resound through grove, and cottage and hall — 
through camp and court. This is the test of worth ; 
and it is a test to which Brainard and his poems may 



MEMOIR OF BRAIN ARU. xU 

be confidingly committed. For although, as Snelling 
says, " he wrote under every disadvantage, and, as 
might be expected, the faults of his writings were 
neither few nor small," yet, " at the same time he had 
the stamina of poetry. Had he received encourage- 
ment sufficient to awaken his energies, his name would 
have lived forever. He was wholly unconscious of 
his own strength, and threw off his best pieces without 
hesitation or premeditation. To this carelessness his 
faults must be attributed. In this, too, he is not alone 
among American poets, most of whom, it seems, write 
as carelessly as Brainard, though by no means as well. 
I wish I could mention three of them who equal John 
Gardiner Calkins Brainard, or six who even approach 
his excellence." 

His poetry, it is conceived, rejlects much of the idio- 
syncrasy of the man. His simplicity, his sportiveness, 
the child-like character of his feelings, the tenderness 
of his emotions, his humble and unprefending views 
of himself, and the occasional depression which came 
over him, are imaged forth in his poetry, as in a pol- 
ished mirror. We are at no loss to decipher him, — 
to tell what he was. He appears honest and open as 
the day. Both the blossoms and the fruit of charity 
in him, — the elevated scriptural sentiment, and the 
practical purpose of good, — mingle together in varied 
loveliness of description, like the flowering and fruit- 
laden orange tree ; and while the imagination is feasted 
with its beauty, the heart is improved by its lessons 
and example of wisdom. There was no mysticism 



Xlii MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. 

about him, — no such shaping of his words as to make 
men wonder what he wa?, and least of all, what he 
means. He never " minces an ambiguous skepti- 
cism," after the fashion of many of his brother bards 
abroad. His simple faith is simply expressed, and 
there is a common-sense view which he takes of man, 
nature, and the events of providence, that approves 
itself to every unsophisticated mind. 

His poetry is the expression of clear and quiet thought. 
The image is brought out with distinctness, and there 
seems to be the absence of effort to make it dazzling 
and impressive. This is the true classical grace, — 
the repose of a pure, deep soul, as we find it in the 
masters of the lyre, in past times. The circumstances 
under which Brainard wrote, as we have already learn- 
ed, precluded that degree of polish and care, so desir- 
able in poetic composition. Hence, he has unequal 
poems, and sometimes careless, incorrect, or coarse 
lines. But he showed the natural felicity of the bard 
— the power of delineating in a few graceful and 
graphic touches, the image as it arose in his own mind. 
With what clearness and nature is the idea brought 
out in the following lines of the " Invalid" ! 

" The grassy lane o'er-arched witli boughs and leaves, 

Buns its green vista to a small bright point, 
And that point is the ocean. Faint the limbs, 
And all the body tires, — but for the soul 
It hath its holyday in such a spot. 

" A moment rest we on the only stone 
In aU the alley, — wipe the sweating brow. 
And drop the ej'e upon the turf around." 



MEftrOIR OF BRAlxNAKD. xllii 

The preceding has the terseness, the distinct thought 
of Cowper, and perhaps more than his simplicity. 
Again, in the following lines of the poem on " Con- 
necticut River," we notice the same feature. 

" Thy noble shores ! where the tall steeple shines, 
At mid-day, higher than thy mountain pines, 
Where the white school-house with its daily drill 
Of sunburnt children, smiles upon the hill ; 
Where the neat village grows upon the eye. 
Decked forth in nature's sweet simplicity, — 
Where hard-won competence, the farmer's wealth, 
Gains merit, honor, and gives labor health ; 
Where Goldsmith's self might send his exiled band 
To find a new ' Sweet Auburn ' in our land." 

The name of Goldsmith here reminds us that the 
strain itself, as well as the theme, is not unworthy of 
that sweet and elegant poet. 

A foreign reviewer* calls Brainard "careless," but 
pays him generally a high compliment, and acknowl- 
edges that, " even in this carelessness, which presents 
the thought in its full and undiluted form, there is often 
a charm." We should say, rather, that the charm 
lies in a certain rare union of a vivid conception with 
the power of graphic expression, — thus painting the 
idea with perfectness to the reader's mind, as in the 
passage on the Falls of Niagara, — which accurate and 
sublime description, be it remembered, is the more 
remarkable from the fact that the poet never saw 
Niagara. 

" It would seem, 
As if God poured thee from his ' hollow hand,' 
And hung his bow upon thy awful front j 
And spoke in that loud voice, which seemed to hinn 

* The Edinburgh Review. 



Xliv IttEMOIR OF BRAINARD. 

Who dwelt in Patmos for his Saviour's sake, 
' The sound of man)^ waters,' and had bade 
Thy flood to chronicle the ages back, 
And notch his centuries in the eternal rocks." 

Also, we have the same characteristic in the lines of 
the "Invalid." 

" He has heard its mighty sound 
Whose bark was on its awful waters, when 
The billows swept the deck and rioted. 
Mixed with the winds round all its gallant spars. 
He too has heard its moanings, who, becalmed, 
Lies like a small thing, helpless and alone, 
Upon a rolling, waste immensity." 

The reader of Brainard's poetry will have noticed 
his nice and accurate observation of nature, and the oh- 
jects around Mm, so characteristic of one who has a 
true poet's eye and heart. We cite the following as 
an example, in the " Maniac's Song :" — 

" Now I have lost my blooming health, 
And joy and hope no more abide ; 
,Mnd wildering fancies come by stealth, 
Like moonlight on a shifting tide.''' 

Also the latter paragraph of " The Indian Summer:" 

" The moon staj^s longest for the hunter now ; 
The trees cast down their fruitage, and the blithe 
Jlnd busy squirrel hoards his winter store : 
While man enjoys the breeze that sweeps along 
The bright blue sk)' above him, and that bends 
Magnificently all the forest's pride, 
Or whispers through t'ne evergreens, and asks, 
' What is there saddening in the autumn leaves ?' " 

Those associations which are suggested to the mind 
by natural objects, are occasionally marked by the 
poet, with much effect, as in the following passage : 

" There 's music in the deep : — 
It is not in the surf's rough roar. 
Nor in the whispering shelly shore, — 



MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. xlv 

The)- are but earthly sounds, that tell 
How little of the sea nympii's shell 
That sends its loud clear note abroad, 
Or winds its softness through the Hood, 
Echoes through groves with coral gay, 
And dies on spongy banks away." 

The poem "I know a Brook," has one of those 
suggestive topics, which are so pleasing and instructive 
in poetry. After a beautiful description of the object, 
the poet concludes ; 

"There I placed 
A frail memorial, — that when again 
I should revisit it, the thought might come 
Of the dull tide of life, and tliat pure spring 
Which he who drinks of never shall thirst more." 

The frequent occurrence of the pathetic in Brainard's 
poetry, has given it one of its most winning character- 
istics. Every reader feels its power, in the simple and 
concise touches, which could have proceeded only from 
a heart exquisitely alive to every holy sympathy. 
" Sketch of an Occurrence on board of a Brig," " On 
a late Loss," " The Maniac's Song," " Is it Fancy or 
is it Fact," are among the pieces that bear this char- 
acter. Poets that excel in pathos, are not unfrequently 
felicitous in humorous description, which would appear 
to require talent of an opposite kind, though they may 
be connected by a nice and undiscernible bond. Some 
of the piecesof the latter kind, are "The Fragment," 
" Lines written for a Lady's Commonplace-Book," 
" The Presidential Cotillon," The Bar versus the 
Docket," and "The Two Comets." There is much 
genuine humor in them, though, in a few instances, 
they happen to contain indifferent poetry. 



Xlvi MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. 

Our poet has a various and appropriate manner, in 
his several productions. There is in them the reverse 
of sameness in matter, argument, and style. Scarcely 
a recurrence of the same expression is found. We 
meet with no ever- returning identities of thought and 
imagery, and language. Every thing is fitted to its 
place and occasion ; and only a natural and appropriate 
form seems to have been adopted, in spreading out his 
fancies and feelings, before the eye of the public. No 
one was ever less a mannerist than this poet. After 
reading a few pieces of some of our writers of song, you 
learn what to expect in regard to that which is coming, 
in rhythm and cadence, if not in sentiment and thought. 
You know the author, almost, without reading his 
name, as soon as a few strings of his lyre have been 
touched : and you have hardly the pleasure of gratify- 
ing an excited curiosity, by the appearance of any vari- 
ety or novelty of matter and manner. Brainard had 
too much of the warm spirit of poetry about him, to 
fall into that artificial mannerism, by which some 
would impart effect to tlieir ungenial efiusions. 

Brainard has recommended himself to his country- 
men, as a truly American poet. His topics, his imagery 
his illustrations are mostly of native growth. There 
is a raciness about them which cannot be mistaken. 
The reader on this side of the water is familiar with 
the scenes, the associations, or the incidents to which 
he is introduced. Most of the commonplace of poetry 
is avoided. The mountains, lakes, rivers, trees, ani- 
mals, — the characters, pursuits, pastimes, and super- 



MEMOIR OF ERAINARD. xlvii 

stitions, which are touclied by the pen of the bard, 
are American. A foreign reviewer has expressed 
the opinion, concerning a volume of Selections from 
American Poets, designed especially to convey strong 
impressions of the characteristics of the New World, 
that it conveys no such impression at all, — that, with 
slight exceptions, one is surprised to find it so truly 
English, — that its beauties and defects are so similar 
to the poetry of the parent land. However true this 
may be in general, yet in regard to Brainard, who is 
one of the poets from whom selections were made, it 
cannot be admitted. Scarcely a page is there but 
shows the American in the topic, the allusion, the 
scenery, or the characters. He is more truly Ameri- 
can, than some English bards are English. Take, for 
instance, Shenstone, who is, indeed, sufficiently arti- 
ficial, but whom, however, we mention, because we 
happened not long since to refresh our memory with 
his entire poetry. He speaks much of the country and 
its scenes, particularly in his pastorals and elegies ; but 
it might, in general, as well have been Greece, as 
Great Britain,— Arcadia as Warwickshire. Fine and 
sweet as he is, who does not sicken to hear so many 
changes rung on the pastoral names of Damon, Cory- 
don, Strephon, Phillis, Delia, and Melissa ! The kids, 
the goats, and the lambs of Theocritus and Virgil, 
figure in the efieminate, though lauded strain. Our 
native bard has made his mother tongue a better vehicle 
of American peculiarities, than the Englishman has of 
the characteristics of Old England. It is, at all events, 



Xlviii MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. 

poetry in which his countrymen can see its reflection of 
themselves, — their notions, sentiments, usages, and 
institutions. 

Like the great mass of American poetry, Brainard's 
is free alike from a vicious and infidel taint. It is safe 
to the healthfuhiess, purity, and peace of the heart, to 
read his productions. A strain of humor, — of merri- 
ment may occasionally relax the muscles of the face ; 
but no licentious, and maddening thoughts are sug- 
gested by the picture of his Muse. Generally, a 
serious, though cheerful and correct view, is taken of 
human life, and its varied, its vast interests, — of the 
world and its pursuits, — of the ways of Providence,— 
and of the truths of Revelation. Occasionally you 
meet with a sweet religious sentiment, — not perhaps 
directly and didactically enforced, but incidentally and 
by allusion, or example, somewhat in the manner of 
Cowper, in his "Alexander Selkirk." 

Brainard's was a short career : had he therefore 
been characterized by unwonted diligence and energy, 
he might have failed, by the shortness of life, to realize 
the highest style of the poetic art. But, inclined as 
he was, constitutionally, somewhat to the opposite state 
of mind, and obliged often to write in haste and in 
other circumstances unfavorable to composition, several 
of his efforts, as we have already sufficiently admitted, 
are stamped with a corresponding imperfection. Still, 
enough has been achieved to rank him as a poet of no 
ordinary power and maturity. The spirit of song dwelt 
in him richly, — the success that he met with shows 



MEMOIR OF BRAINARD. xlix 

that he did not mistake his vocation, — and it would 
seem, as if only longer life and additional opportunities 
were wanting, to the fullest development of poetic 
excellence. 

' We subjoin to this sketch, a poetic tribute to the 
memory of Brainard, from the pen of Snelling. 
Though it probably expresses, with far too much 
strength, the poet's trials arising from the deficient 
patronage and favor of his countrymen at large, it is, 
in other respects, both just and beautiful. 

" Peace, Muse ; a rest thy wearied pinions crave, 
Alight, and weep on Brainard's early grave. 
Lamented Brainard I Since no living line 
Records thy worth, I '11 make that merit mine : 
Be mine the task to make fresh roses bloom, 
And shed undying fragrance on thy tomb. 
In thine own mind our cause of mourning grew,— 
"^ The falchion's temper ate the scabbard through. 

Hard, hard thy lot, and great thy country's shame, 

Who let such ollspring die without his fame. 

He pined to see the buds his brow that decked, 

Nipped by the bitter blight of cold neglect. 

Torn from the tree, they perished one by one, 

Before their opening petals saw the sun ; 

While the same chilling blast that breathed on them. 

Froze the rich life-blood of the noble stem. 

But not neglect, nor sorrow's rankling smart,' 

Could sour the kindly current of his heart ; 

And not the canker that consumed his frame 

Could to the last his eagle spirit tame ; 

With faltering hand his master harp he strung. 

While music echoed from his dying tongue, 

Then, winged his passage to a higher sphere, 

To seek the glory we denied him here. 

Fair Cygnus thus, while life's last pulses roll, 

Pours forth in melody his parting soul." 

4 



i 



MONODV. li 



MONODY ON THE POET BRAINARD. 
Bt Mrs. L. H. Sigournet. 

I ROAMED where Thames* old Ocean's breast doth cheer, 
Pouring from crystal um, the waters sheen, 
What time dim twilight's silent step was near, 
And gathering dews impearled the margin green ; 
Yet, though mild autumn with a smile serene 
Had gently fostered summer's lingering bloom, 
Methought strange sadness brooded o'er the scene, — 
While the lone river, murmuring on in gloom, 
Deplored its sweetest bard, laid early in the tomb. 

His soul for friendship formed, sublime, sincere, — 
Of each ungenerous deed his high disdain. 
Perchance the cold world scanned with eye severe j — 
Perhaps his harp her guerdon failed to gain ; — 
But Nature guards his fame, for not in vain 
He sang her shady dells, and mountains hoar, — 
King Philip's billowy bay repeats his name, 
To its gray tower, — and with eternal roar 
Niagara bears it on to the far-echoing shore. 

Each sylvan haunt he loved,— the simplest flower 
That burned Heaven's incense in its bosom fair, 
The crested billow with its fitful power, — 
The chirping nest, that claimed another's care, — 
All woke his worship, as some altar rare 
Or sainted shrine doth win the pilgrim's knee j — 
And he hath gone to rest, where earth and air 
Lavish their sweetest charms, — while loud and free 
Sounds forth the wind-swept harp of his own native sea. 

* The Thamn is a tributory of Long Iilaad Sound, at New London. 



lii TO THE MEMORY OF BRAINARD. 

His country's brave defenders, few and gray, 
By penury stricken, with despairing sighs,— 
He nobly sang, and breathed a warning lay 
Lest from their graves a withering corse should rise : 
But now, where pure and bright, the peaceful skies 
And watching stars look down, on Groton's height. 
Their monument attracts the traveller's eyes. 
Whose souls unshrinking took their martyr-flight, 
"When Arnold's traitor-sword tiashed out in tiendish might 

Youth with glad hand her frolic germs had sown. 
And garlands clustered round his manly head, — 
Those garlands withered, — and he stood alone 
While on his cheek the gnawing hectic fed, — 
And chilling death-dews o'er his temple spread : — 
But on his soul a quenchless star arose, 
Whose hallowed beams their brightest lustre shed 
When the dimmed eye to its last pillow goes,— 
He followed where it led, and found a saint's repose. 

And now, farewell !— The rippling stream shall hear 
No more the echo of thy sportive oar ; 
Nor the loved group, thy father's halls that cheer, 
Joj' in the magic of thy presence more ; 
Long shall their tears thy broken lyre deplore : — 
Yet doth thine image, warm and deathless, dwell 
With those who love the minstrel's tuneful lore, — 
And still thy music, like a treasured spell. 
Thrills deep within our souls. Lamented bard, farewell ! 



TO THE MEMORY OF J. G. C. BRAINARD. 
By J. G. Whittier 

Gone to the land of silence,— to the shadows of the dead,— 

With the green turf on thy bosom, and the gray stone at thy head ! 

Hath thy spirit too departed ? Doth it never linger here. 

When the dew upon the bending flower is falling like a tear ? 

When the sunshine lights the green earth like the perfect smile of God, 

Or when the moonlight gladdens, or the pale stars look abroad ? 



FAREWELL. liu 

Hast thou lost thy pleasant fellowship with the beautiful of earth, 
With the green trees, and the quiet streams around thy place of birth ? 
The wave that wanders seaward, — the tall gray hills, whereon 
Lingers, as if for sacrifice, the last light of the sun ; — 
The fair of form, — the pure of soul, — the eyes that shone when thou 
Wast answering to their smiles of love, — art thou not with them now ? 

Thou art sleeping calmly, Brainard, — but the fame denied thee when 

Thy way was with the multitude, — the living tide of men, 

Is burning o'er thy sepulchre, — a holy light and strong, 

And gifted ones are kneeling there, to breathe thy words of song, — 

The beautiful and pure of soul, — the lights of Earth's cold bowers, 

Are twining on thy funeral-stone a coronal of flowers ! 

Ay, freely hath the tear been given,— and freel}'' hath gone forth 
The sigh of grief, that one like thee should pass away from Earth, — 
Yet those who mourn tliee, mourn thee not like those to whom is given 
No soothing hope, no blissful thought, of parted friends in Heaven, — 
They feel that thou wast summoned to the Christian's high reward, 
The everlasting joy of those whose trust is in the Lord. 



FAREWELL TO BRAINARD 

Bv Deodatus Button. 

Minstrel, farewell ! 
Sadly thy harp is slumbering. 

Its golden chords unstrung, — 
Thj- voice, that woke its echoing, 
Its cygnet note hath sung ; 
And voice and harp will slumber on 
Till Time's last lingering sands have run : 
JNIinstrel, farewell '. 

Friend, thou art gone ! 
We meet no more thy warm embrace, 

With cordial friendship stored, — 
We greet no more thj' welcome face. 
Around our social board, — 
Thy wonted seat is vacant now, 
And thou, our friend, O '. where art thou ? 
Alas I thou 'rt gone ! 



liv FAREWELL. 

Brother, adieu ! 
We mourn thy early destiny, 

Thou nearest, dearest, best, — 
Ay, bitterly we wept to see, 
The grave close o'er thy breast ! 
But 't was His will ; then let us stand 
Submissive 'neath his chastening hand ! 
Brother, adieu ! 

Son, thou hast fled ! 
^ Thou wert a green and verdant leaf. 

And I am pale and sere ! 
Yet thou hast fallen ! while in grief, 
I still am lingering here ' 
My noble, O ! my darling boy. 
Thou wert thy father's hope and joy ' 
Yet thou hast fled. 

" Christian, all hail !" 
Here with our songs of love and praise, 

Thy voice will wake again ; 
Thy harp in loudest notes shall raise 
An everlasting strain ! 
Our God and thine, who knows no end, 
Will be thy Father, Brother, Friend : 
" Christian, all hail." 



POEMS. 



ON CONNECTICUT RIVER. ♦ 

From that lone lake, the sweetest of the chain 

That links the mountain to the mighty main, 

Fresh from the rock and swelling by the tree, 

Rushing to meet and dare and breast the sea — 

Fair, noble, glorious rivpr ! in the wave 

The sunniest slopes and sweetest pastures lave ; 

The mountain torrent, with its wintry roar 

Springs from its home and leaps upon thy shore : — 

The promontories love thee — and for this 

Turn their rough cheeks and stay thee for thy kiss. 

Stern, at thy source, thy northern Guardians stand, 
Rude rulers of the solitary land. 
Wild dwellers by thy cold sequestered springs. 
Of earth the feathers and of air the wings ; 
Their blasts have rocked thy cradle, and in storm 
Covered thy couch and swathed in snow thy form — 
Yet, blessed by all the elements that sweep 
The clouds above, or the unfathomed deep, 
The purest breezes scent thy blooming hills, 
The gentlest dews drop on thy eddying rills. 



56 ON CONNECTICUT RIVER. 

By the mossed bank, and by the aged tree, 
The silver streamlet smoothest glides to thee. 

The young oak greets thee at the water's edge, 
Wet by the wave, though anchored in the ledge. 
— 'T is there the otter dives, the beaver feeds. 
Where pensive oziers dip their willowy weeds, 
And there the wild-cat purs amid her brood, 
And trains them in the sylvan solitude. 
To watch the squirrel's leap, or mark the mink 
Paddling the water by the quiet brink ; — 
Or to out-gaze the gray owl in the dark. 
Or hear the young fox practising to bark. 

Dark as the frost-nipped 'leaves that strewed the 
ground, 
The Indian hunter here his shelter found ; 
Here cut his bow and shaped his arrows true. 
Here built his wigwam and his bark canoe, 
Speared the quick salmon leaping up the fall. 
And slew the deer without the rifle ball. 
Here his young squaw her cradling tree would choose, 
Singing her chant to hush her swart pappoose. 
Here stain her quills and string her trinkets rude. 
And weave her warrior's wampum in the wood. 
— No more shall they thy welcome waters bless. 
No more their forms thy moon-lit banks shall press. 
No more be heard, from mountain or from grove. 
His whoop of slaughter, or her song of love. 



ON CONNECTICUT RIVER. 57 

Thou didst not shake, thou didst not shrink when, late 
The mountain-top shut down its ponderous gate, 
Tumbling its tree-grown ruins to thy side, 
An avalanche of acres at a slide. 
Nor dost ihou stay, when winter's coldest breath 
Howls through the woods and sweeps along the 

heath — 
One mighty sigh relieves thy icy breast, 
And wakes thee from the calmness of thy rest. 

Down sweeps the torrent ice — it maf not stay 
By rock or bridge, in narrow or in bay — 
Swift, swifter to the heaving sea it goes, 
And leaves thee dimpling in thy sweet repose. 
— Yet as the unharmed swallow skims his way, 
And lightly drops his pinion in thy spray. 
So the swift sail shall seek thy inland seas. 
And swell and whiten in thy purer breeze. 
New paddles dip thy waters, and strange oars 
Feather thy waves and touch thy noble shores. 

Thy nohle shores ! where the tall steeple shines, 
At mid-day, higher than thy mountain pines. 
Where the white school-house with its daily drill 
Of sunburnt children, smiles upon the hill. 
Where the neat village grows upon the eye 
Decked forth in nature's sweet simplicity — 
Where hard-won competence the farmer's wealth, 
Gains merit, honor, and gives labor health. 
Where Goldsmith's self might send his exiled band 
To find a new " Sweet Auburn" in our land. 



58 ON CONNECTICUT RIVEE. 

What Art can execute, or Taste devise, 
Decks thy fair course and gladdens in thine eyes— 
As broader sweeps the bendings of thy stream, 
To meet the southern Sun's more constant beam. 
Here cities rise, and sea-washed commerce hails 
Thy shores and winds with all her flapping sails. 
From Tropic isles, or from the torrid main — 
Where grows the grape or sprouts the sugar-cane — 
Or from the haunts, where the striped haddock play, 
By each cold northern bank and frozen bay. 
Here safe returned from every stormy sea, 
Waves the striped flag, the mantle of the free, 
— That star-lit flag, by all the breezes curled 
Of yon vast deep whose waters grasp the world. 

In what Arcadian, what Utopian ground 
Are warmer hearts or manlier feelings found, 
More hospitable welcome, or more zeal 
To make the curious " tarrying" stranger feel 
That next to home, here best may he abide. 
To rest and cheer him by the chimney-side ; 
Drink the hale Farmer's cider, as he hears 
From the gray dame the tales of other years. 
Cracking his shag-barks, as the aged crone 
— Mixing the true and doubtful into one — 
Tells how the Indian scalped the helpless child, 
And bore its shrieking mother to the wild. 
Butchered the father hastening to his home, 
Seeking his cottage — finding but his tomb. 
How drums, and flags, and troops were seen on high, 
Wheeling and charging in the northern skv. 



ON CONNECTICUT RIVER. 59 

And that she knew what these wild tokens meant, 
When to the Old French War her husband went. 
How, by the thunder-blasted tree, was hid 
The golden spoils of far-famed Robert Kidd ; 
And then the chubby grandchild wants to know 
About the ghosts and witches long ago, 
That haunted the old swamp. 

The clock strikes ten — 
The prayer is said, nor unforgotten then 
The stranger in their gates. A decent rule 
Of Elders in thy puritanic school. 

When the fresh morning wakes him from his dream, 
And daylight smiles on rock, and slope, and stream, 
Are there not glossy curls and sunny eyes. 
As brightly lit and bluer than thy skies; 
Voices as gentle as an echoed call. 
And sweeter than the. softened waterfall 
That smiles and dimples in its whispering spray. 
Leaping in sportive imiocence away : — 
And lovely forms, as graceful and as gay 
As wild-brier, budding in an April day ; 
— Flow like the leaves — the fragrant leaves it bears. 
Their sinless purposes and simple cares. 

Stream of my sleeping Fathers ! when the sound 
Of coming war echoed thy hills around, 
How did thy sons start forth from every glade, 
Snatching the musket where they left the spade. 



60 ON CONNECTICUT RIVER. 

How did their mothers urge them to the fight, 
Their sisters tell them to defend the right, — 
How bravely did they stand, how nobly fall, 
The earth their coffin and the turf their pall. 
How did the aged pastor light his eye, 
When, to his flock, he read the purpose high 
And stern resolve, whatever the toil may be, 
To pledge life, name, fame, all — for Liberty. 
— Cold is the hand that penned that glorious page — 
Still in the grave the body of that sage 
Whose lip of eloquence and heart of zeal. 
Made Patriots act and listening Statesmen feel — 
Brought thy Green Mountains down upon their foes. 
And thy white summits melted of their snows. 
While every vale to which his voice could come, 
Rang with the fife and echoed to the drum. 

Bold River ! better suited are thy waves 
To nurse the laurels clust'ring round their graves. 
Than many a distant stream, that soaks the mud 
Where thy brave sons have shed their gallant blood. 
And felt, beyond all other mortal pain. 
They ne'er should see their happy home again. 

Thou hadst a poet once, — and he could tell. 
Most tunefully, whate'er to thee befell. 
Could fill each -pastoral reed upon thy shore — 
— But we shall hear his classic lays no more ! 
He loved thee, but he took his aged way. 
By Erie's shore, and Perry's glorious day, 



THE FALL OF NIAGARA. 61 

To where Detroit looks out amidst the wood, 
Remote beside the dreary solitude. 

Yet for his brow thy ivy leaf shall spread, 
Thy freshest myrtle lift its berried head, 
And our gnarled Charter oak put forth a bough, 
Whose leaves shall grace thy Trumbull's honored 
brow. 



THE FALL OF NIAGARA. 

" Labitur et labetur." 

The thoughts are strange that crowd into my brain, 

While I look upward to thee. It would seem 

As if God poured thee from his "hollow hand," 

And hung his bow upon thine awful front ; 

And spoke in that loud voice, which seemed to him 

Who dwelt in Patmos for his Saviour's sake, 

"The sound of many waters;" and had bade 

Thy flood to chronicle the ages back. 

And notch His cent'ries in the eternal rocks. 

Deep calleth unto deep. And what are we, 
That hear the question of that voice sublime ? 
O ! what are all the notes that ever rung 
From war's vain trumpet, by thy thundering side ! 
Yea, what is all the riot man can make 



62 MATCHIT MOODUS. 

In his short life, to thy unceasing roar ! 
And yet, bold babbler, what art thou to Him, 
Who drowned a world, and heaped the waters far 
Above its loftiest mountains ? — a light wave. 
That breaks, and whispers of its Maker's might. 



MATCHIT MOODUS . 

A traveller, who accidentally passed through East Haddam, made several 
inquiries as to the " Moodus noises,^' that are peculiar to that part of the 
country. Many particulars were related to him of their severity and 
eftects, and of the means that had been taken to ascertain their cause, 
and prevent their recurrence. He was told tliat the simple and terrified 
inhabitants, in the early settlement of the town, applied to a book-learned 
and erudite man /row England, by the name of Doctor Steele, who under- 
took, by magic, to allay their terrors ; and for this purpose took the sole 
charge of a blacksmith's shop, in which he worked by night, and from 
which he excluded all admission, tightly stopping and darkening the place 
to prevent any prying curiosity from interfering with his occult opera- 
tions. He however so far explained the cause of these noises as to say, 
that they were owing to a carbuncle, which must have grown to a great 
size, in the bowels of the rocks j and that if it could be removed, the 
noises would cease, until another should grow in its place. The noises 
ceased — the doctor departed, and has never been heard of since. It was 
supposed that he took the carbuncle with him. Thus far was authentic, 
A litle girl, who had anxiously noticed the course of the traveller's 
inquiries, sung for his further edification the following ballad : 

See you upon the lonely moor, 

A crazy building rise ? 
No hand dares venture to open the door — 
No footstep treads its dangerous floor — 

No eye in its secrets pries. 



MATCHIT MOODUS. G3 

Now why is each crevice stopped so tight ? 

Say, why the bolted door ? 
Why glimmers at midnight the forge's light — 
All day is the anvil at rest, but at night 

The flames of the furnace roar ? 

Is it to arm the horse's heel, 

That the midnight anvil rings ? 
Is it to mould the ploughshare's steel, 
Or is it to guard the wagon's wheel, 

That the smith's sledge-hammer swings ? 

The iron is bent, and the crucible stands 

With alchymy boiling up ; 
Its contents were mixed by unknown hands, . 
And no mortal fire e'er kindled the brands, 

That heated that cornered cup. 

O'er Moodus river a light has glanced, 

On Moodus hills it shone ; 
On the granite rocks the rays have danced. 
And upward those creeping lights advanced. 

Till they met on the highest stone. 

O that is the very wizzard place. 

And now is the wizzard hour. 
By the light that was conjured up, to trace 
Ere the star that falls can run its race. 

The seat of the earthquake's power. 

By that unearthly light, I see 
A figure strange alone — 



64 MATCHIT MOODUS. 

With magic circlet on his knee, 
And decked with Satan's symbols, he 
Seeks for the hidden stone. 

Now upward goes that gray old man, 

With mattock, bar, and spade — 
The summit is gained, and the toil began, 
And deep by the rock where the wild lights ran, 
The magic trench is made. 

Loud and yet louder was the groan 

That sounded wide and far ; 
And deep and hollow was the moan, 
That rolled around the bedded stone. 

Where the workman plied his bar. 

Then upward streamed the brilliant's light, 
It streamed o'er crag and stone : — 

Dim looked the stars, and the moon, that night ; 

But when morning came in her glory bright. 
The man and the jewel were gone. 

But woe to the bark in which he flew 

From Moodus' rocky shore ; 
Woe to the captain, and woe to the crew, 
That ever the breath of life they drew, 

When that dreadful freight they bore. 

Where is that crew and vessel now ? 
, Tell me their state who can ? 
The wild waves dash o'er their sinking bow — 
Down, down to the fathomless depths they go, 
To sleep with a sinful man. 



MATCHIT MOODUS. 65 

The carbuncle lies in the deep, deep sea, 

Beneath the mighty wave ; 
But the light shines upward so gloriously, 
That the sailor looks pale, and forgets his glee, 

When he crosses the wizard's grave. 

" In the course of our desultorj- reading we have noted several testi- 
monies of authors and travellers relative to singular noises in the moun- 
tains, which would seem almost to corroborate the hypothesis of the 
Matchit Moodus Alchymist. VAscOiVCELLos, a Jesuit of some repute, 
describes similar noises which he heard in Brazil. They resembled the 
discharge of heavy artillery. In the Terra de Piratumingo the Indians 
told him that the noise he heard was an explosion of stones ; — ' and it was 
so,' said he, ' for after some days the place was found where a rock had 
burst, and from its entrails, with the report which we had heard like 
groans, had sent forth a little treasure. This was a sort of nut, about the 
size of a bull's heart — full of jewelry of diflerent colors, some white — 
some transparent crystal, others of a line red, and some between red and 
white, imperfect as it seemed. All these were placed in order like the 
grains of a pomegranate, within a case or shell harder than iron, which 
was broken to pieces by the explosion.' In speaking of the adjoining 
province of Guayra, Techo says it is famous for a sort of stones, which 
nature after a wonderful manner produces in an oval stone case, about the 
bigness of a man's head : — these stones lying under ground until they 
arrive to a certain maturity, fly like bombs in pieces about the air, with 
much noise. In an old account of Teixeira's voyage down the Orellana, 
the writer says, that ' the Indians assured them, that horrible noises were 
heard in the Lena de Paraguaxo from time to time, which is a certain sign 
that this mountain contains stones of great value in its entrails.' Humboldt 
himseK notices this phenomenon as occurring in the hills near Mexico, — 
a subterraneous noise like the roar of artillery. As coal abounds in those 
hills, he inquires whether this does not announce a disengagement oi 
hydrogen produced by a bed of coal in a state of inflammation. In the 
account of the ' Yellow Stone Expedition' of Lewis and Clarke, in 1804, 
1805, and ISOG, we are told, that, near the falls of the Missouri, several loud 
reports were heard among the mountains resembling precisely the report 
of a six-pounder. The Indians had before told them of these noises. The 
Pawnee and Ricaras tribes of Indians also told the exploring party, that a 
similar noise was frequently heard among the mountains to the westward 
of their country, which was caused, they said, by the bursting of the rich 
mines confined in the bosom of the earth." — J. G. Whittiek. 



X 



66 ON THE DEA.TH OF COMMODORE PERRY. 



ON THE DEATH OF COMMODORE OLIVER 
H. PERRY. 

" By strangers honored, and by strangers mourned." 

How sad the notes of that funereal drum, 
That 's muffled by indifference to the dead ! 

And how reluctantly the echoes come, 

On air that sighs not o'er that stranger's bed, 
Who sleeps with death alone. — O'er his young head 

His native breezes never more shall sigh ; 

On his lone grave the careless step shall tread, 

And pestilential vapors soon shall dry 

Each shrub that buds around — each flower that 
blushes nigh. 

Let Genius, poising on her full-fledged wing, 

Fill the charmed air with thy deserved praise : 
Of war, and blood, and carnage let her sing. 

Of victory and glory ! — let her gaze 

On the dark smoke that shrouds the cannon's blaze — 
On the red foam that crests the bloody billow ; 

Then mourn the sad close of thy shortened days — 
Place on thy country's brow the weeping willow, 
And plant the laurels thick, around thy last cold 
pillow. 



ON THE DEATH OF COMMODORE PERRY. 67 

No sparks of Grecian fire to me belong : 

Alike uncouth the poet and the lay ; 
Unskilled to turn the mighty tide of song, 

He floats along the current as he may, 

The humble tribute of a tear to pay. 
Another hand may choose another theme, 

May sing of Nelson's last and brightest day, 
Of Wolfe's unequalled and unrivalled fame. 
The wave of Trafalgar — the field of Abraham. 

But if the wild winds of thy western lake 

Might teach a harp, that fain would mourn the brave, 
And sweep those strings the minstrel may not wake. 

Or give an echo from some secret cave 

That opens on romantic Erie's wave, 
The feeble chord would not be swept in vain ; 

And though the sound might never reach thy grave, 
Yet there are spirits here, that to the strain 
Would send a still small voice responsive back again. 

And though the yellow plague infest the air ; 

Though noxious vapors blight the turf, where rest 
The manly form, and the bold heart of war ; 

Yet should that deadly isle afar be blest ! 

For the fresh breezes of thy native west 
Should seek and sigh around thy early tomb, 

Moist with the tears of those who loved thee best, 
Scented with sighs of love — there grief should come, 
And mem'ry guard thy grave, and mourn thy hapless 
doom. 



68 A mariner's song. 

It may not be. Too feeble is the hand, 

Too weak and frail the harp, the lay too brief 
To speak the sorrows of a mourning land, 

Weeping in silence for her youthful chief. 

Yet may an artless tear proclaim more grief 
Than mock affection's arts can ever show ; 

A heart-felt sigh can give a sad relief. 
Which all the sobs of counterfeited woe. 
Tricked off in foreign garb, can ever hope to know. 



A MARINER'S SONG. 

Though now we are sluggish and lazy on shore. 
Yet soon shall we be where the wild waters roar ; 
Where the wind through the hoarse rattling cordage 

shall rave, 
And fling the white foam from the top of the wave. 

Yes, soon o'er the waters the Essex shall sweep, 

And bear all the thunders of war o'er the deep ; 

While the hands that are hard, and the hearts that are 

brave. 
Shall give the bold frigate the top of the wave. 

And though some one among us may never return, 
His comrades shall sorrow, his messmates shall mourn ; 
Though his body may sink to a watery grave, 
His spirit shall rise to the top of the wave. 



EPITHALAMIUM. 69 

Then a health to John Adams ! and long may he reign 
O'er the mountain, the valley, the shore, and the main ; 
May he have the same breeze, which to Washington 

gave, 
In his cruise o'er the waters, the top of the wave*. 



EPITHALAMIUM. 

I SAW two clouds at morning. 

Tinged with the rising sun ; 
And in the dawn they floated on, 

And mingled into one : 
I thought that morning cloud was blest, 
It moved so sweetly to the west. 

I saw two summer currents. 

Flow smoothly to their meeting. 
And join their course, with silent force, 

In peace each other greeting : 
Calm was their course through banks of green, 
While dimpling eddies played between. 

Such be your gentle motion. 

Till life's last pulse shall beat ; 
Like summer's beam, and summer's stream, 

Float on, in joy, to meet 
A calmer sea, where storms shall cease — 
A purer sky, where all is peace. 



70 INTRODUCTION TO A LADY's ALBUM. 



INTRODUCTION TO A LADY'S ALBUM 

The wanton boy that sports in May, 
Among the wild flowers, blooming, gay, 
With laughing eyes and glowing cheeks. 
The brightest, freshest, fairest seeks. 
And there, delightedly, he lingers. 
To pluck them with his rosy fingers. 
While, like the bee, he roves among 
Their sweets, and hums his little song. 

He weaves a garland rich and rare. 
And decorates his yellow hair : 
The rose, and pink, and violet. 
And honeysuckle, there are set ; 
The darkest cypress in the glade 
Lends to the wreath its solemn shade, 
And sadly smiles, when lighted up 
With daisy, and with butter-cup. 

Thus fair and bright each flower should be, 
Culled from the field of Poesy ; 
But with the lightsome and the gay. 
Be mixed the moralizing lay 
Of those, who, like the cypress bough, 
A thoughtful shade of sorrow throw 
On transient buds, or flowers light, 
That smile at morn, and fade at night. 



THE SHAD SPIRIT. 7] 



THE SHAD SPIRIT. 

There is a superstition in many places, which bears, that Shad are con- 
ducted from the gulf of Mexico into Connecticut river bv a kind of Yankee 
bogle, iaihe shape of a bird, properly called the Shad Spirit. It makes 
its appearance, annually, about a week before the Shad, calls the fish, and 
gives warning to the fishermen to mend their nets. It is supposed, that 
without his assistance, the nets would be swept to no purpose, and the 
fisherman would labor in vain. 

.Now drop the bolt, and securely nail 

The horse-shoe over the door ; 
'T is a wise precaution, and if it should fail 

It never failed before. 

Know ye the shepherd that gathers his flock, 
Where the gales of the Equinox blow, 

From each unknown reef, and sunken rock, 
In the gulf of Mexico ; 

While the monsoons growl, and the trade-winds bark, 

And the watch-dogs of the surge 
Pursue through the wild waves the ravenous shark, 

That prowls around their charge ? 

To fair Connecticut's northernmost source, 

O'er sand-bars, rapids, and falls. 
The Shad Spirit holds his onward course, 
With the flocks which his whistle calls. 



72 THE TREE TOAD. 

O how shall he know where he went before ? 

Will he wander around for ever ? 
The last year's shad-heads shall shine on the shore, 

To light him up the river. 

And well can he tell the very time 

To undertake his task — 
When the pork barrel 's low he sits on the chine, 

And drums on the cider cask. 

Though the wind is light, the wave is white, 
With the fleece of the flock that 's near ; 

Like the breath of the breeze, he comes over the seas. 
And faithfully leads them here. 

And now he 's passed the bolted door. 

Where the rusted horse-shoe clings ; 
So carry the nets to the nearest shore. 

And take what the Shad Spirit brings. 



THE TREE TOAD. 

I AM a jolly tree toad, upon a chestnut tree ; 

I chirp, because I know that the night was made for me ; 

The young bat flies above me, the glow-worm shines 

below. 
And the owlet sits to hear me, and half forgets his 

woe. 



THE TREE TOAD. 73 

I 'm lighted by the fire-fly, in circles wheeling round ; 
The caty-did is silent, and listens to the sound ; 
The jack-o'-lantern leads the way-worn traveller 

astray, 
To hear the tree toad's melody until the break of day. 

The harvest moon hangs over me, and smiles upon 
the streams ; 

The lights dance upward from the north, and cheer 
me with their beams ; 

The dew of heaven, it comes to me as sweet as beau- 
ty's tear ; 

The stars themselves shoot down to see what music 
we have here. 

The winds around me whisper to ev'ry flower that 
blows, 

To droop their heads, call in their sweets, and every 
leaf to close ; 

The whip-poor-will sings to his mate the mellow mel- 
ody; 

Oh ! hark, and hear the notes that flow from yonder 
chestnut tree." 

Ye caty-dids and whip-poor-wills, come listen to me 

now ; 
I am a jolly tree toad upon a chestnut bough ; 
I chirp because I know that the night was made for 

me — 
And I close my proposition with a Q. E. D. 



N 
* 



74 SPRING. 



SPRING, 



TO MISS' 



Other poets may muse on thy beauties, and sing 

Of thy birds, and thy flowers, and thy perfumes, sweet 

Spring ! 
They may wander enraptured by hills and by moun- 
tains. 
Or pensively pore by thy fresh gushing fountains ; 
Or sleep in the moonlight by favorite streams, 
Inspired by the whispering sylphs in their dreams, 
And awake from their slumbers to hail the bright sun, 
When shining in dew the fresh morning comes on. 

But I' ve wet shoes and stockings, a cold in my throat. 
The head-ache, and tooth-ache, and quinsy to boot; 
No dew from the cups of the flow'rets I sip, — 
^T is nothing but honeset that moistens my lip ; 
Not a cress from the spring or the brook can be had : 
At morn, noon, and night, I get nothing but shad ; 
My whispering sylph is a broad-shouldered lass. 
And my bright sun — a warming-pan made out of 
brass ! 

Then be thou my genius ; for what can I do, 
When I cannot see nature, but copy from you ? 
If Spring be the season of beauty and youth. 
Of hope and of loveliness, kindness, and truth; 



ON THE BIRTHDAY OF WASHINGTON. 75 

Of all that 's inspiring, and all that is bright, 
And all that is what we call just about right — 
Why need I expose my sick muse to the weather, 
When by going to you she would find all together ? 



ON THE BIRTHDAY OF WASHINGTON. 

" Hie cinis — upique fama." 

Behold the mossed corner-stone dropped from the 

wall. 
And gaze on its date — but remember its fall, 

And hope that some hand may replace it; 
Think not of its pride when with pomp it was laid. 
But weep for the ruin its absence has made, 

And the lapse of the years that efiace it. 

Mourn Washington's death, when ye think of his 

birth. 
And far from your thoughts be the lightness of mirth, 

And far from your cheek be its smile. 
To-day he was born — 't was a loan — not a gift : 
The dust of his body is all that is left. 

To hallow his funeral pile. 

Flow gently, Potomac ! thou washest away 

The sands where he trod, and the turf where he lay. 

When youth brushed his cheek with her wing ; 
Breathe softly, ye wild winds, that circle around 
That dearest, and purest, and holiest ground. 

Ever pressed by the footprints of Spring. 



76 LINES SUGGESTED BY A LATE OCCURRENCE. 

Each breeze be a sigh, and each dew-drop a tear, 
Each wave be a whispering monitor near, 

To remind the sad shore of his story ; 
And darker, and softer, and sadder the gloom 
Of that evergreen mourner, that bends o'er the tomb 

Where Washington sleeps in his glory. 

Great God ! when the spirit of freedom shall fail, 
And the sons of the Pilgrims, in sorrow, bewail 

Their religion and liberty gone ; 
O ! send back a form that shall stand as he stood, 
Unsubdued by the tempest, unmoved by the flood j 

And to Thee be the glory alone. 



LINES SUGGESTED BY A LATE OCCUR- 
RENCE. 

On the 21st of February, 1823, in the middle of the day, as the mail 
stage from Hartford to New Haven, with three passengers, was crossing 
the bridge at the foot of the hill near Durham, the bridge was carried 
away by the ice, and the stage was precipitated down a chasm of twenty 
feet. Two of the passengers were drowned : one of them had been 
long from home, and was on his way to see his friends. This occurrence 
is mentioned as explanatory of the following Lines. 

" How slow we drive ! — but yet the hour will come, 
When friends shall greet me with affection's kiss ; 

When, seated at my boyhood's happy home, 
I shall enjoy a mild, contented bliss, 
Not often met with in a world like this ! 

Then I shall see that brother, youngest born, 
I used to play with in my sportiveness ; 



LINES SUGGESTED BY A LATE OCCURRENCE. 77 

And, from a mother's holiest look, shall learn 

A parent's thanks to God, for a loved son's return. 

" And there is one, who, with a downcast eye 

Will be the last to welcome me; but yet 
My memory tells me of a parting sigh. 

And of a lid with tears of sorrow wet. 

And how she bade me never to forget 
A friend — and blushed. — O ! I shall see again 

The same kind look I saw, when last we met, 
,And parted. Tell me then that life is vain — 
That joy, if met with once, is seldom met again." 



* * See ye not the falling, fallen mass ? 

Hark ! hear ye not the drowning swimmer's cry ? 
Look on the ruin of the desperate pass ! 

Gaze at the hurried ice that rushes by. 

Bearing a freight of woe and agony. 
To that last haven where we all must go. — 

Resistless as the stormy clouds that fly 
Above our reach, is that dark stream below ! — 
May peace be in its ebb — there 's ruin in its flow. 



78 ON A LATE LOSS. 



ON A LATE LOSS.* 

" He shall not float upon his watery bier 
Unwept." 

The breath of air that stirs the harp's soft string, 

Floats on to join the whirlwind and the storm ; 
The drops of dew exhaled from flowers of spring, 

Rise and asume the tempest's threatening form ; 
The first mild beam of morning's glorious sun. 

Ere night, is sporting in the lightning's flash ; 
And the smooth stream, that flows in quiet on. 

Moves but to aid the overwhelming dash 
That wave and wind can muster, when the might 

Of earth, and air, and sea, and sky unite. 

So science whispered in thy charmed ear. 

And radiant learning beckoned thee away. 
The breeze was music to thee, and the clear 

Beam of thy morning promised a bright day. 
And they have wrecked thee ! — But there is a shore 

Where storms are hushed — where tempests never 
rage; 
Where angry skies and blackening seas, no more 

With gusty strength their roaring warfare wage. 
By thee its peaceful margent shall be trod — 

Thy home is Heaven, and thy friend is God. 

* Professor Fisher, lost in the Albion, oft' the coast of Kinsale, Ireland. 



ON THE DEATH OF REV. LEVI PARSONS. 79 



ON THE DEATH OF REV. LEVI PARSONS.* 

Green as Machpelah's honored field, 
Where Jacob and where Leah lie, 

Where Sharon's shrubs their roses yield, 
And CarmeFs branches wave on high ; 

So honored, so adorned, so green. 

Young martyr ! shall thy grave be seen. 

O ! how unlike the bloody bed, 

Where pride and passion seek to lie ; 

Where faith is not, where hope can shed 
No tear of holy sympathy ! 

There withering thoughts shall drop around, 

In dampness on the lonely mound. 



On Jordan's weeping willow trees, 

Another holy harp is hung : 
It murmurs in as soft a breeze. 

As e'er from Gilead's balm was flung, 
When Judah's tears, in Babel's stream 
Dropped, and when "Zion was their theme." 

♦ He was associated with the Rev. Pliny Fisk, on the Palestine mission, 
and died at Alexandria, February 18th, 1S22. 



80 ON THE PROJECT OF AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 

So may the harp of Gabriel sound 

In tlie high heaven, to welcome thee, ' 

When, rising from the holy ground 
Of Nazareth and Galilee, 

The saints of God shall take their flight,^ 

In rapture, to the realms of light. 



ON THE PROJECT OF AFRICAN COLONIZA- 
TION. 

" Magna componere parvis." 

All sights are fair to the recovered blind — 
All sounds are music to the deaf restored — 

The lame, made whole, leaps like the sporting hind ; 
And the sad, bowed- down sinner, with his load 

Of shame and sorrow, when he cuts the cord. 
And drops the pack it bound, is free again 

In the light yoke and burden of his Lord : 
Thus, with the birthright of his fellow man, 
Sees, hears, and feels at once, the righted African. 

'T is somewhat like the burst from death to life — 
From the grave's cerements to the robes of Heaven ; 

From sin's dominion, and from passion's strife, 
To the pure freedom of a soul forgiven ! 
When all the bonds of death and hell are riven. 

And mortals put on immortality ;, 



TO THE MARQUIS LA FAYETTE. 81 

When fear, and care, and grief away are driven, 
And Mercy's hand has turned the golden key, 
And Mercy's voice has said, "Rejoice — thy soul is 
free !" 



TO THE MARQUIS LA FAYETTE. 

We '11 search the earth, and search the sea, 

To cull a gallant wreath for thee ; 

And every field for freedom fought, 

And every mountain height, where aught 

Of liberty can yet be found. 

Shall be our blooming harvest ground. 

Laurels in garlands hang upon 

Thermopylae and Marathon — 

On Bannockburn the thistle grows — 

On Runny Mead the wild rose blows ; 

And on the banks of Boyne, its leaves 

Green Erin's shamrock wildly weaves. 

In France, in sunny France, we '11 get 

The fleur-de-lis and mignonette, 

From every consecrated spot 

Where lies a martyred Huguenot ; 

And cull, even here, from many a field, 

And many a rocky height. 
Bays that our vales and mountains yield, 

Where men have met, to fight 
For law, and liberty, and life. 
And died in freedom's holy strife. 
6 



82 maniac's song. 

Below Atlantic seas — below 

The waves of Erie and Champlain, 
The sea-grass and the corals grow 

In rostral trophies round the slain ; 
And we can add, to form thy crown, 
Some branches worthy thy renown ! 
Long may the chaplet flourish bright, 
And borrow from the Heavens its light. 
As with a cloud, that circles round 

A star, when other stars have set, 
With glory shall thy brow be bound ; 
With glory shall thy head be crowned ; 

With glory, starlike, cinctured yet ! 
For earth, and air, and sky, and sea, 
Shall yield a glorious wreath to thee. 



MANIAC'S SONG. 

I CAN but smile when others weep, 
I can but weep when others smile ; 

O ! let me in this bosom keep 
The secret of my heart awhile. 

My form was fair, my step was light, 
As ever tripped the dance along ; 

My cheek was smooth, my eye was bright — 
My thought was wild, my heart was young. 



TO THE MEMORY OF CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. 83 

And he I loved would laugh with glee, 
And every heart but mine was glad j 

He had a smile for all but me ; 
O ! he was gay, and I was sad ! 

Now, I have lost my blooming health. 
And joy, and hope, no more abide ; 

And wildering fancies come by stealth, 
Like moonlight on a shifting tide. 

They say he wept, when he was told 

That I was sad and sorrowful ; 
That on my wrist the chain was cold — 

That at my heart the blood was dull. 

They fear I 'm crazed — they need not fear. 
For smiles are false, and tears are true ; 
'\ better love to see a tear. 

Than all the smiles I ever knew. 



TO THE MEMORY OF CHARLES BROCKDEN 
BROWN. 

V 

We seek not mossy bank, or whispering stream, 
Or pensive shade, in twilight softness decked, 

Or dewy canopy of flowers, or beam 

Of autumn's sun, by various foliage checked. 



84 TO THE MEMORY OF CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. 

Our sweetest river, and our loveliest glen, 
Our softest waterfalls, just heard afar, 

Our sunniest slope, or greenest hillock, when 
It takes its last look at the evening star. 

May suit some softer soul. But thou wert fit 
To tread our mighty mountains, and to mark, 

In untracked woods, the eagle's pinions flit 
O'er roaring cataracts and chasms dark : 

To talk and walk with Nature, in her wild 
Attire, her boldest form, her sternest mood ; 

To be her own enthusiastic child. 
And seek her in her awful solitude. 

There, when through stormy clouds, the struggling 
moon 

On some wolf-haunted rock, shone cold and clear, 
Thou couldst commune, inspired by her alone. 

With all her works of wonder and of fear. 

Now thou art gone, and who thy walks among, 
Shall rove, and meditate, and muse on thee ? 

No whining rhymster with his schoolboy song, 
May wake thee with his muling minstrelsy ! 

Some western muse, if western muse there be. 

When the rough wind in clouds has swathed her 
form. 

Shall boldly wind her wintry horn for thee, 
And tune her gusty music to the storm. 



X 



LORD EXMOUTH's VICTORY AT ALGIERS. 85 

The cavern's echoes, and the forest's voice, 
Shall chime in concord to the waking tone ; 

And winds and waters, with perpetual noise, 
For thee shall make their melancholy moan. 



LORD EXMOUTH'S VICTORY AT ALGIERS. 

1816. 

" Anna virumque cano." 

The sun looked bright upon the morning tide : 

Light played the breeze along the whispering shore, 
And the blue billow arched its head of pride, 

As 'gainst the rock its frothy front it bore ; 

The clear bright dew fled hastily before 
The morning's sun, and glittered in his rays ; 

Aloft the early lark was seen to soar, 
And cheerful nature glorified the ways 
Of God, and mutely sang her joyous notes of praise. 

The freshening breeze, the sporting wave. 
Their own impartial greeting gave 

To Christian and to Turk ; 
But both pi*epared to break the charm 
Of peace, with war's confused alarm — 
And ready each, for combat warm, , 

Commenced the bloody work. 

For England's might was on the seas. 
With red cross flapping in the breeze, 



8G LORD EXMOUTH's victory at ALGIERS. 

And streamer floating light ; 
While the pale crescent, soon to set, 
Waved high on tower and minaret, 
And all the pride of Mahomet 

Stood ready for the fight. 

Then swelled the noise of battle high ; 
The warrior's shout, the coward's cry, 

• Rung round the spacious bay. 
Fierce was the strife, and ne'er before 
Had old Numidia's rocky shore 
Been deafened with such hideous roar. 
As on that bloody day. 

It seemed as if that earth-born brood. 
Which, poets say, once warred on God, 

Had risen from the sea ; — 
As if again they boldly strove 
To seize the thunderbolts of Jove, 
And o'er Olympian powers to prove 

Their own supremacy. 

What though the sun has sunk to rest ? 
What though the clouds of smoke invest 

The capes of Matisou ? 
Still by the flash each sees his foe, 
And, dealing round him death and woe, 
With shot for shot, and blow for blow. 

Fights — to his country true. 

Each twinkling star looked down to see 
The pomp of England's chivalry, 



LORD EXMOUTh's VICTORY AT ALGIERS. 87 

The pride of Briton's crown ! 
While ancient ^Etna raised his head, 
Disgorging from his unknown bed 
A fire, that round each hero shed 

A halo of renown. 

The dying sailor cheered his crew. 
While thick around the death-shot flew ; 

And glad was he to see 
Old England's flag still streaming high, — 
Her cannon speaking to the sky, 
And telling all the powers on high, 

Of Exmouth's victory ! 

The crescent wanes — the Turkish might 
Is vanquished in the bloody fight. 

The Pirate's race is run ; — 
Thy shouts are hushed, and all is still 
On tower, and battlement, and hill. 
No loud command — no answer shrill — 

Algiers ! thy day is done ! 

The slumb'ring tempest swelled its breath, 
And sweeping o'er the field of death, 

And o'er the waves of gore. 
Above the martial trumpet's tone. 
Above the wounded soldier's moan, 
Above the dying sailor's groan. 

Raised its terrific roar. 

Speed swift, ye gales, and bear along 
This burden for the poet's song, 



86 WRITTEN FOR A LADy's COMMONPLACE-BOOK. 

O'er continent and sea : 
Tell to the world that Britain's hand 
Chastised the misbelieving band, 
And overcame the Paynim land 

In glorious victory. 



WRITTEN FOR A LADY'S COMMONPLACE- 
BOOK. 

Ah ! who can imagine what plague and what bothers 
He feels, who sits down to write verses for others ! 
His pen must be mended, his inkstand be ready, 
His paper laid square, and his intellects steady ; 
And then for a subject — No, that 's not the way, 
For genuine poets don't care what they say. 
But how they shall say it. So now for a measure, 
That 's suited alike to your taste and my leisure. 
For instance, if you were a matron of eighty. 
The verse should be dignified, solemn, and weighty ; 
And luckless the scribbler who had not the tact. 
To make every line a sheer matter of fact. 
Or if you were a stiff, worn-out spinster, too gouty 
To make a good sylph, and too sour for a beauty ; 
Too old for a flirt, and too young to confess it ; 
Too good to complain oft, and too bad to bless it ; 
The muse should turn out some unblamable sonnet, 
And mutter blank verse in her comments upon it : 
Demure in her walk, should look down to her shoe, 
And pick the dry pathway, for fear of the dew. 



, THE LOST PLEIAD. 89 

But for you, she shall trip it, wherever she goes, 
As light and fantastic as L'AUegro's toes; 
Wade, swim, fly, or scamper, fuU-fledged and webb- 

footed. 
Or on Pegasus mounted, well spurred and well booted, 
With martingale fanciful, crupper poetic, 
Saddle cloth airy, and whip energetic, 
Girths woven of rainbows, and hard-twisted flax, 
And horse- shoe as bright as the edge of an axe ; 
How blithe should she amble and prance on the road, 
With a pillion behind for . 

By Helicon's waters she '11 take her sweet course. 
And indent the green turf with the hoofs of her horse ; 
Up blooming Parnassus bound higher and higher. 
While the gate-keeping Graces no toll shall require ; 
And the other eight Muses shall dance in cotillon. 
And sing round the sweep of Apollo's pavillion — 
While Phoebus himself, standing godlike on dry land. 
Shall shine on the belle of the state of R I . 



THE LOST PLEIAD.* 



TO MY FRIEND G . 

O ! HOW calm and how beautiful — look at the night ; 
The planets are wheeling in pathways of light ; 

* It IS said by the ancient poets, that there used to be one more star 
in the cousteliation of the Pleiades. 



90 THE ALLIGATOR. 

And the lover, or poet, with heart, or with eyo, 
Sends his gaze with a tear, or his soul with a sigh. 

But from Fesole's summit the Tuscan looked forth, 
To eastward and westward, to south and to north ; 
Neither planet nor star could his vision delight, 
'Till his own bright Pleiades should rise to his sight. 

They rose, and he numbered their glittering train — 
They shone bright as he counted them over again ; 
But the star of his love, the bright gem of the cluster, 
Arose not to lend the Pleiades its lustre. 
And thus, when the splendor of beauty has blazed. 
On light and on loveliness, how have we gazed ! 
And how sad have we turned from the sight, when we 

found 
That the fairest and sweetest was "not on the ground.'* 



THE ALLIGATOR.* 

That steed has lost his rider ! I have seen 
His snuffing nostril, and his pawing hoof; 
His eyeball lighting to the cannon's blaze. 
His sharp ear pointed, and each ready nerve. 
Obedient to a whisper ;-=— his white mane 
Curling with eagerness, as if it bore, 

* The United States schooner Alligator was wrecked on her return 
from the West India station, after the murder, by the pirates, of her com- 
mander. Captain Allyn. 



, THE SEA GULL. 91 

To squadroned foes, the sign of victory, 
Wliere'er his bounding speed could carry it. 
But now, with languid step, he creeps along, 
Falters, and groans, and dies. 

And I have seen 
Yon foundering vessel, when with crowding sail, 
With smoking bulwarks, and with blazing sjdes, 
Sporting away the foam before her prow. 
And heaving down her side to the brave chase, 
She seemed to share the glories of the bold ! 
But now, with flagging canvas, lazily 
She moves; and stumbling on the rock, she sinks, 
As broken hearted as that faithful steed, 
That lost his rider, and laid down, and died. 



THE SEA GULL.* ' 

" Ibis et redibis nunquam peribis in bello." — Oracle. 

I SEEK not the grove where the wood-robins whistle. 
Where the light sparrows sport, and the linnets pair ; 

I seek not the bower where the ring-doves nestle, 
For none but the maid and her lover are there. 

On the clefts of the wave-washed rock I sit. 
When the ocean is roaring and raving nigh ; 

On the howling tempest I scream and flit, 

With the storm in my wing, and the gale in my eye. 

• Commodore Pouter's vessel 



92 THE SEA GULL. 

And when the bold sailor climbs the mast, 

And sets his canvas gallantly. 
Laughing at all his perils past, 

And seeking more on the mighty sea ; 

I '11 flit to his vessel, and perch on the truck. 

Or sing in the hardy pilot's ear ; 
That her deck shall be like my wave- washed rock, 

And her top like my nest when the storm is near. 

Her cordage, the branches that I will grace — 
Her rigging, the grove where I will whistle ; 

Her wind-swung hammock, my pairing place, 
Where I by the seaboy's side will nestle. 

And when the fight, like the storm, comes on, 
'Mid the warrior's shout and the battle's noise, 

I '11 cheer him by the deadly gun, 
'Till he loves the music of its voice. 

And if death's dark mist shall his eye bedim. 

And they plunge him beneath the fathomless wave, 

A wild note shall sing his requiem, 

And a white wing flap o'er his early grave. 



THE CAPTAIN. 93 



THE CAPTAIN 



A FRAGMENT/ 



Solemn he paced upon that schooner's deck, 

And muttered of his hardships : — " I have been 

Where the wild will of Mississippi's tide 

Has dashed me on the sawyer ; — I have sailed 

In the thick night, along the wave-washed edge 

Of ice, in acres, by the pitiless coast 

Of Labrador ; and I have scraped my keel 

O'er coral rocks in Madagascar seas — 

And often in my cold and midnight watch, 

Have heard the warning voice of the lee-shore 

Speaking in breakers ! Ay, and I have seen 

The whale and sword-fish fight beneath my bows ; 

And, when they made the deep boil like a pot. 

Have swung~ into its vortex ; and I know 

To cord my vessel with a sailor's skill. 

And brave such dangers with a sailor's heart ; 

— But never yet upon the stormy wave, 

Or where the river mixes with the main, 



* A Bridgeport paper of March, 18-23, said : " Arrived, schooner Fame, 
from Charleston, via New-London. While at anchor in that harbour, du- 
ring the rain storm on Thursday evening last, the Fame was run foul of by 
the wreck of the Methodist Meeting-house from Norwich, which wa» 
carried awaj- in the late freshet." 



94 LEATHER STOCKING. 

Or in the chafing anchorage of the bay, 
In all my rough experience of harm, 
Met I — a Methodist meeting-house ! 



Cat-head, or beam, or davit has it none. 

Starboard nor larboard, gunwale, stem nor stern ! 

It comes in such a "questionable shape," 

I cannot even speak it ! Up jib, Josey, 

And make for Bridgeport ! There, where Stratford 

Point, 
Long-beach, Fairweather Island, and the buoy, 
Are safe from such encounters, we '11 protest / 
And Yankee legends long shall tell the tale, 
That once a Charleston schooner was beset. 
Riding at anchor, by a Meeting-house. 



LEATHER STOCKING. 

The following lines refer to the good wishes which Elizabeth, in Me. 
Cooper's novel of " The Pioneers," seems to have manifested, in the last 
chapter, for the welfare of " Leather Stocking," when he signified, at the 
grave of the Indian, his determination to quit the settlements of men for the 
unexplored forests of the we«t ; and when, whistling to his dogs, with his 
rifle on his shoulder, and his pack on his back, he left the village of Tera- 
pleton. ^ 

Far away from the hill-side, the lake, and the hamlet, 
The rock, and the brook, and yon meadow so gay ; 

From the footpath that winds by the side of the stream- 
let; 
From his hut, and the grave of his friend, far away — 



LEATHER STOCKING. 95 

He is gone where the footsteps of men never ventured, 
Where the glooms of the wild-tangled forest are cen- 
tered, 
Where no beam of the sun or the sweet moon has 
entered. 
No bloodhound has roused up the deer with his bay. 

He has left the green alley for paths, where the bison 
Roams through the prairies, or leaps o'er the flood ; 
Where the snake in the swamp sucks its deadliest 
poison, 
And the cat of the mountains keeps watch for its 
food; 
But the leaf shall be greener, the sky shall be purer. 
The eye shall be clearer, the rifle be surer. 
And stronger the arm of the fearless endurer. 

That trusts nought but Heaven in his way through 
the wood. 

Light be the heart of the poor lonely wanderer ; 

Firm be his step through each wearisome mile — 
Far from the cruel man, far from the blunderer ; 

Far from the track of the mean and the vile. 
And when death, with the last of its terrors, assails him, 
And all but the last throb of memory fails him. 
He '11 think of the friend, far away, that bewails him, 

And light up the cold touch of death with a smile. 

And there shall the dew shed its sweetness and lustre ; 
There for his pall shall the oak leaves be spread — 



96 VERSES WRITTEN FOR THE NEW-YEAR. 

The sweet-brier shall bloom, and the wild grape shall 
cluster ; 

And o'er him the leaves of the ivy be shed. 
There shall they mix with the fern and the heather ; 
There shall the young eagle shed its first feather ; 
The wolves, with his wild dogs, shall lie there together. 

And moan o'er the spot where the hunter is laid. 



EXTRACTS FROM VERSES WRITTEN FOR 
THE NEW-YEAR, 1823. 

When streams of light, in golden showers, 
First fell on long lost Eden's bowers, 
And music, from the shouting skies, 
Wandered to Eve's own Paradise, 
She tuned her eloquent thoughts to song, 
And hymned her gratitude among 
The waving groves, by goodness planted, 
The holy walks by blessings haunted : 
And when of bower and grove bereaved, 
Since joy was gone, in song she grieved 
And taught her scattering sons the art. 
In mirth or woe, to touch the heart. 
Bear witness, Jubal's ringing wire, 
And untaught David's holier lyre ; 
Let Judah's timbrel o'er the waters, 
Sound to the song of Israel's daughters — 
Let Prophecy the strain prolong, 
Prompting the watching shepherd's song. 



VERSES WRITTEN FOR THE NEW-YEAR. 97 

And pressing to her eager lips, 
The trump of the Apocalypse. 
Bear witness pagan Homer's strain, 
That to each valley, hill, and plain 
Of classic Greece — to all the isles 
That dimple in her climate's smiles — 
To all the streams that rush or flow 
To the rough Archipelago — 
To wood and rock, to brook and river, 
Gave names will live in song for ever. 

The notes were rude that Druids sung 
Their venerable woods among ; 
But later bards, enwrapt, could pore 
At noon upon their pastoral lore, 
And love the oak-crowned shade, that yielded 
A blessing on the spot it shielded. 
It shed a solemn calm around 
Their steps, who trod the Muse's ground ; 
And waved o'er Shakspeare's summer dreams, 
By Avon's fancy-haunted streams. 

Then genius stamped her focitprints free, 
Along the walks of Poetry ; 
And cast a spell upon the spot. 
To sa?ve it from the common lot. 
'Twas like the oily gloss that 's seen 
Upon the shining evergreen. 
When desolate in wintry air, 
The trees and shrubs around are bare. 
7 



98 VERSES WRITTEN FOR THE NEW- YEAR. 

And when a New- Year's sun at last 
Lights back our thoughts upon the past ; 
When recollection brings each loss 
Our sad'ning memories across ; 
When Piety and Science mourn 
Parsons and Fisher* from them torn — 
Just as yon yellow plague has fled — 
While mindful mourners wail the dead, 
The great, the good, the fair, the brave. 
Seized in the cold grasp of the grave ; 
When Murder's hand has died the flood 
With a young gallant hero's blood ; 
When cheeks are pale, and hearts distressed. 
Is this a time for idle jest ? 

The waves shall moan, the winds shall wail 
Around thy rugged coast, Kinsale, 
For one who could mete out the seas, 
And turn to music every breeze — 
Track the directing star of night. 
And point the varying needle right. 

Fair Palestine ! is there no sound 
That murmurs holy peace around 
His distant grave, whose ardent soul 
Fainted not till it reached thy goal. 
And blessed the rugged path, that led 
His steps where his Redeemer bled ? — 



• See note to " Lines on the Death of the Rev. Levi Parsons," and " On 
a late Loss." 



VERSES WRITTEN FOR THE NEW- YEAR. 99 

We may not breathe what angels sing — 
We may not wake a seraph's string ; 
Nor brush, with mortal steps, the dew 
That heavenly eyes have shed on you. 

And who shall tell to listening Glory, 
Bending in grief her plumed head. 
While war- drops from her brow are shed. 
And her beating heart, and pulses numb, 
Throb like the tuck of a muffled drum. 

Her favorite Allyn's* story ? 
O ! other harps shall sing of him. 
And other eyes with tears be dim ; 
And gallant hopes that banish fears, 
And hands and hearts, as well as tears. 
Shall yet, before all eyes are dry. 
Do justice to his memory ; 
And hew or light with sword or flame, 
A pile of vengeance to his name. 

O ! for those circumscribing seas, 
That hemmed thy foes, Themistocles ! 
When Xerxes saw his vanquished fleet, 
And routed army at his feet — 
And scowled o'er Salamis, to see 
His foe's triumphant victory ! 
O ! for that more than mortal stand. 
Where, marshalling his gallant band, 

• See note to " The Alligator." 

LOFl 



100 THE NEWPORT TOWER. 

Leonidas, at freedom's post, 

Gave battle to a tyrant's host ; 

Then Greece might struggle, not in vain, 

And breathe in liberty again. 



THE NEWPORT TOWER. 

When and for what purpose this was built, seems to be matter of dis- 
pute. The New York Statesman associates it with great antiquity — ^the 
Commercial Advertiser gives it a military character ; and the Rhode- 
Island American, with a view, perhaps, to save it from doggerel rhymes 
and sickish paragraphs, says it is nothing but an old windmill — if such 
was the plan, however, it has not succeeded. 

There is a rude old monument, 
Half masonry, half ruin, bent 
With sagging weight, as if it meant 

To warn one of mischance ; 
And an old Indian may be seen. 
Musing in sadness on the scene. 
And casting on it many a keep. 

And many a thoughtful glance. 

When lightly sweeps the evening tide 
Old Narraganset's shore beside. 
And the canoes in safety ride 

Upon the lovely bay — 
I 've seen him gaze on that old tower, 
At evening's calm and pensive hour, 
And when the night began to lower, 

Scarce tear himself away. 



THE NEWPORT TOWER. 101 

Oft at its foot I 've seen him sit, 
His willows trim, his walnut split, 
And there his seine he loved to knit, 

And there its rope to haul ; 
'T is there he loves to be alone, 
Gazing at every crumbling stone, 
And making many an anxious moan. 

When one is like to fall. 

But once he turned with furious look, 
While high his clenched hand he shook, 
And from his brow his dark eye took 

A red'ning glow of madness; 
Yet when I told him why I came. 
His wild and bloodshot eye grew tame, 
And bitter thoughts passed o'er its flame. 

That changed its rage to sadness. 

" You watch my step, and ask me why 
This ruin fills mry straining eye ? 
Stranger, there is a prophecy 

Which you may lightly heed : 
Stay its fulfilment, if you can ; 
I heard it of a gray-haired man. 
And thus the threatening story ran, — 

A boding tale indeed. 

" He said, that when this massy wall 
Down to its very base should fall, 



102 THE THUNDER STORM. 

And not one stone among it all 

Might rest upon another, 
Then should the Indian race and kind 
Disperse like the returnless wind, 
And no red man be left to find 

One he could call a brother. 

" Now yon old tower is falling fast, — 
Kindred and friends away are passed ; 
O ! that my father's soul may cast 

Upon my grave its shade, 
When some good Christian man shall place 
O'er me, the last of all my race, 
The last old stone that falls, to grace 

The spot where I am laid." 



THE THUNDER STORM.* 

The Sabbath morn came sweetly on, 
The sunbeams mildly shone upon 
V Each rock, and tree, and flower ; 

And floating on the southern gale, 
The clouds seemed gloriously to sail 
Along the Heavens, as if to hail 
That calm and holy hour. 

• Two persons, an old lady and a girl, were killed by lightning, in the 
Presbyterian Meeting-house in Monlville, on Sunday the 1st of June, 1823, 
while the congregation were singing. The following is not an exaggera- 
ted account of the particulars. ' 



THE THUNDER STORM. 103 

By winding path and alley green, 
The lightsome and the young were seen 

To join the gathering throng ; 
While with slow step and solemn look, 
The elders of the village took 
Their way, and as with age they shook, 

Went reverently along. 

They meet — " the sweet psalm-tune" they raise ; 
They join their grateful hearts, and praise 

The Maker they adore. 
They met in holy joy ; but they 
Grieve now, who saw His wrath that day, 
And sadly went they all away, 
And better than before. 

There was one cloud, that overcast 
The valley and the hill, nor past 

Like other mists away : 
It moved not round the circling sweep 
Of the clear sky, but dark and deep, 
Came down upon them sheer and steep, 
Where they had met to pray. 

One single flash ! it rent the spire. 
And pointed dov/nward all its fire — 

What could its power withstay ? 
There was an aged head; and there 
Was beauty in its youth, and fair 
Floated the young locks of her hair — 

It called them both away ! 



104 TO A MISSIONARY. 

The Sabbath eve went sweetly down ; 
Its parting sunbeams mildly shone 

Upon each rock and flower; 
And gently blew the southern gale, 
— But on it was a voice of wail, 
And eyes were wet, and cheeks were pale, 

In that sad evening hour. 



TO A M^ISSIONARY, 

WHO ATTENDED THE LATE MEETING OF THE BIBLE SOCIETY 
AT NEW YORK. 

Why should thy heart grow faint, thy cheek be pale ? 

Why in thine eye should hang the frequent tear, 
As if the promise of thy God would fail, 

And thou and all be left to doubt and fear ? 

Doubt not, for holy men are gathered here ; 
Fear not, for holy thoughts surround the place. 

And angel pinions hover round, to bear 
To their bright homes the triumphs of his grace. 
Whose word all sin and shame, all sorrow shall efface. 

Pure as a cherub's wishes be thy thought. 
For in thine ear are heavenly whisperings; 

And strong thy purposes, as though they sought 
To do the errand of the King of Kings. 
And if thy heart be right, his mantle flings 

Its glorious folds of charity around 



THE ROBBER. 105 

Thine earthly feelings ; and the tuneful strings 
Of harps in heaven shall vibrate to the sound 
Of thy soul's prayer from earth, if thou art contrite 
found. 

Go then, and prosper. He has promised all — 

All that instructed zeal can need or ask ; 
And thou art summoned with too loud a call, 

To hesitate and tremble at thy task. 

Let scoffers in their glimpse of sunshine bask, 
And note thy pilgrimage in other light : 

Their is a look that peeps but through a mask ; 
Thine is an open path, too plain, too bright 
For those who doze by day, and see but in the night. 



THE ROBBER.* 

The moon hangs lightly on yon western hill ; 

And now it gives a parting look, like one 

Who sadly leaves the guilty. You and I 

Must watch, when all is dark, and steal along 

By these lone trees, and wait for plunder. — Hush ! 

I hear the coming of some luckless wheel. 

Bearing we know not what — perhaps the wealth 

* Two large bags containing newspapers, were stolen from the boot 
behind a Mail Coach between New Brunswick and Bridgetown. The 
strap securing the bags in the boot were cut, and nothing else injured or 
removed therefrom. The letter msiils are always carried in the front boot 
of the coach, under the drivers's feet, and therefore cannot be so ea^silj 
approached. 



106 THE ROBBER. 

Torn from the needy, to be hoarded up 

By those who only count it ; and perhaps 

The spendthrift's losses, or the gambler's gains, 

The thriving merchant's rich remittances, 

Or the small trifle some poor serving girl 

Sends to her poorer parents. But come on — 

Be cautious. — There — 't is done ; and now away, 

With breath drawn in, and noiseless step, to seek 

The darkness that befits so dark a deed. 

Now strike your light. — Ye powers that look upon us ! 

What have we here ? Whigs, Sentinels, Gazettes, 

Heralds, and Posts, and Couriers — Mercuries, 

Recorders, Advertisers, and Intelligencers — 

Advocates and Auroras. — There, what 's that ! 

That 's — a Price Current. 

I do venerate 
The man, who rolls the smooth and silky sheet 
Upon the well cut copper. I respect 
The worthier names of those who sign bank bills ; 
And, though no literary man, I love 
To read their short and pithy sentences. 
But I hate types, and printers — and the gang 
Of editors and scribblers. Their remarks, 
Essays, songs, paragraphs, and prophecies, 
I utterly detest. — And these, particularly. 
Are just the meanest and most rascally, 
"Stale and unprofitable" publications, 
I ever read in my life. 



AES ALIENUM. 107 



SONNET TO THE SEA-SERPENT. 

" Hugest that swims the ocean stream." 

Welter upon the waters, mighty one — 
And stretch thee in the ocean's trough of brine ; 

Turn thy wet scales up to the wind and sun, 
And toss the billow from thy flashing fin ; 
Heave thy deep breathings to the ocean's din. 

And bound upon its ridges in thy pride : 

Or dive down to its lowest depths, and in 
The caverns where its unknown monsters hide. 
Measure thy length beneath the gulf-stream's tide- 

Or rest thee on that naval of the sea 
Where, floating on the Maelstrom, abide 

The krakens sheltering under Norway's lee ; 
But go not to Nahant, lest men should swear, 
You are a great deal bigger than you are. 



«AES ALIENUM." 



HisPANiA ! O, Hispania ! once my home — 
How hath thy fall degraded every son 
Who owns thee for a birth-place. They who walk 
Thy marbled courts and holy sanctuaries, 



108 THE GUERRILLA. 

Or tread thy olive groves, and pluck the grapes 

That cluster there — or dance the saraband 

By moonlight, to some Moorish melody — 

Or whistle with the Muleteer, along 

Thy goat-climbed rocks and awful precipices ; 

How do the nations scorn them and deride ! 

And they who wander where a Spanish tongue 

Was never heard, and where a Spanish heart 

Had never beat before, how poor, how shunned, 

Avoided, undervalued, and debased, 

Move they among the foreign multitudes ! 

Once I was bright to the world's eye, and passed 

Among the nobles of my native land 

In Spain's armorial bearings, decked and stampt 

With Royalty's insignia, and I claimed 

And took the station of my high descent ; 

But the cold world has cut a cantle aut 

From my escutcheon — and now here I am, 

A poor, depreciated pistareen.* 



THE GUERRILLA. 

Though friends are false, and leaders fail, 

And rulers quake with fear ; 
Though tamed the shepherd in the vale, 

Though slain the mountaineer ; 

» This coin, now seldom seen, was formerly valued at twenty cents ; 
but when the above was written, passed for but eighteen. 



THE GUERRILLA. 109 

Though Spanish beauty fill their arms, 

And Spanish gold their purse — 
Sterner than wealth's or war's alarms, 

Is the wild Guerrilla's curse. 

No trumpets range us to the fight ; 

No signal sound of drum 
Tells to the foe, that in their might 

The hostile squadrons come. 
No sunbeam glitters on our spears, 

No warlike tramp of steeds 
Gives warning — for the first that hears 

Shall be the first that bleeds. 

The night breeze calls us from our bed. 

At dewfall forms the line, 
And darkness gives the signal dread 

That makes our ranks combine : 
Or should some straggling moonbeam lie 

On copse or lurking hedge, 
'T would flash but from a Spaniard's eye, 

Or from a dagger's edge. 

'T is clear in the sweet vale below. 

And misty on the hill ; 
The skies shine mildly on the foe, 

But lower upon us still. 
This gathering storm shall quickly burst. 

And spread its terrors far, 
And at its front we '11 be the first. 

And with it go to war. 



110 JACK FROST AND THE CATY-KID. 

O ! the mountain peak shall safe remain- 

'T is the vale shall be despoiled, 
And the tame hamlets of the plain 

With ruin shall run wild ; 
But Liberty shall breathe our air 

Upon the mountain head, 
And Freedom's breezes wander here. 

Here all their fragrance shed. 



JACK FROST AND THE CATY-DID 



JACK FROST. 



I HEARD — 't was on an Autumn night — 
A little song from yonder tree ; 

'T was a Caty-did, in the branches hid, 
And thus sung he : 

" Fair Caty sat beside yon stream. 

Beneath the chestnut tree ; 
Each star sent forth its brightest gleam, 
And the moon let fall her softest beam 

On Caty and on me. 

" And thus she wished — ' O, could I sing 

Like the little birds in May, 
With a satin breast and a silken wing, 
And a leafy home by this gentle spring, 

I 'd chirp as blithe as they. 



JACK FROST AND THE CATY-DID. Ill 

" 'The Frog in the water, the Cricket on land, 

The Night-hawk in the sky, 
With the Whip-poor-will should be my band, 
While gayly by the streamlet's sand. 

The Lightning-bug should fly.' 

" Her wish is granted — Off she flings 

The robes that her beauty hid; 
She wraps herself in her silken wings, * 
And near me now she sits and sings, 

And tells what Caty did." 



A beam from the waning moon was shot, 

Where the little minstrel hid, 
A cobweb from the cloud was let. 

And down I boldly slid. 

A hollow hailstone on my head. 
For a glittering helm was clasped, 

And a sharpened spear, like an icicle clear, 
In my cold little fingers was grasped. 

Silent, and resting on their arms, 

I viewed my forces nigh. 
Waiting the sign on earth to land. 

Or livouac in the sky. 

From a birchen bough, which yellow turned 

Beneath my withering lance ; 
I pointed them to that glassy pool, 

And silently they advanced. 



% 



112 MR. merry's lament for "long TOM.' 

The water crisped beneath their feet, 

It never felt their weights ; 
And nothing but the rising sun, 

Showed traces of their skates. 

No horn I sounded, no shout I made, 

But I lifted my vizor lid. 
My felt-shod foot on the leaf I put, 
4 And killed the Caty-did. 

Her song went down the southern wind, 
Her last breath up the stream ; 

But a rustling branch is left behind. 
To fan her wakeless dream. 



MR. MERRY'S LAMENT FOR "LONG TOM."* 

" Let us think of them that sleep, 
Full many a fathom deep, 
By the wUd and stormy steep, 
Elsinore." 

Thy cruise is over now, 

Thou art anchored by the shore, 
And never more shalt thou 

Hear the storm around thee roar ; 
Death has shaken out the sands of thy glass. 
Now around thee sports the whale, 

• See the sixth chapter of the second volume of " The Pilot," by th« 
author of " The Pioneers." 



ME. merry's lament FOR "LONG TOM." ILS 

And the porpoise snufFs the gale, 
And the night- winds wake their wail, 
As they pass. 

The sea-grass round thy bier 
Shall bend beneath the tide, 
• Nor tell the breakers near 

Where thy manly limbs abide ; 
But the granite rock thy tombstone shall be. 
Though the edges of thy grave 
Are the combings of the wave — 
Yet unheeded they shall rave 
Over thee. 

At the piping of all hands, 

When the judgment signal 's spread — 
When the islands, and the lands. 
And the seas give up their dead, 
And the south and the north shall come ; 
When the sinner is dismayed, 
And the just man is afraid. 
Then Heaven be thy aid, 
Poor Tom. 



114 ON THE DEATH OF MR. WOOD^VARD. 



I 



ON THE DEATH OF MR. WOODWARD, AT 
EDINBURGH. , 

" The spider's most attenuated thread, 
Is cord — is cable, to man's tender tie 
On earthly bliss ; it breaks at every breeze." 

Another ! 't is a sad word to the heart, 
That one by one has lost its hold on life, 

From all it loved or valued, forced to part 
In detail. Feeling dies not by the knife 

* That cuts at once and kills — its tortured strife 

Is with distilled affliction, drop by drop 
Oozing its bitterness. Our world is rife 

With grief and sorrow ! all that we would prop. 

Or would be propped with, falls — when shall the ruin 
stop ! 

The sea has one, and Palestine has one. 

And Scotland has the last. The snooded maid 

Shall gaze in wonder on the stranger's stone, 
And wipe the dust off with her tartan plaid — 
And from the lonely tomb where thou art laid, 

Turn to some other monument — nor know 

Whose grave she passes, or whose name she read — 

Whose loved and honored relics lie below ; 

Whose is immortal joy, and whose is mortal woe. 



TO THE DEAD. 115 

There is a world of bliss hereafter — else 
Why are the bad above, the good beneath 

The green grass of the grave ? The Mower fells 
Flowers and briers alike. But man shall breathe 
(When he his desolating blade shall sheathe 

And rest him from his work) in a pure sky, 

Above the smoke of burning worlds ; — and Death 

On scorched pinions with the dead shall lie, 

When time, with all his years and centuries has 
passed by. 



TO THE DEAD. 

How many now are dead to me 

That live to others yet ! 
How many are alive to me 
Who crumble in their graves, nor see 
That sick'ning, sinking look which we 

Till dead can ne'er forget. 

Beyond the blue seas, far away, 

Most wretchedly alone. 
One died in prison — far away, 
Where stone on stone shut out the day, 
And never hope, or comfort's ray 

In his lone dungeon shone. 

Dead to the world, alive to me ; 

Though months and years have passed, 



116 THE DEEP. 

In a lone hour, his sigh to me 
Comes like the hum of some wild bee, 
And then his form and face I see 
As when I saw him last. 

And one with a bright lip, and cheek, 

And eye, is dead to me. 
How pale the bloom of his smooth cheek ! 
His lip was cold — it would not speak ; 
His heart was dead, for it did not break ; 

And his eye, for it did not see. 

Then for the living be the tomb. 

And for the dead the smile ; 
Engrave oblivion on the tomb 
Of pulseless life and deadly bloom — 
Dim is such glare : but bright the gloom 
Around the funeral pile. 



THE DEEP. 



There 's beauty in the deep ; 
The wave is bluer than the sky ; 
And though the lights shine bright on high, 
More softly do the sea-gems glow 
That sparkle in the depths below ; 
The rainbow's tints are only made 
When on the waters they are laid, 



THE DEEP. 117 

And Sun and Moon most sweetly shine 
Upon the ocean's level brine. 
There 's beauty in the deep. 

There 's music in the deep : — 
It is not in the surPs rough roar, 
Nor in the whispering, shelly shore — 
They are but earthly sounds, that tell 
How little of the sea nymph's shell. 
That sends its loud, clear note abroad. 
Or winds its softness through the flood, 
Echoes through groves with coral gay, 
And dies, on spongy banks, away. 

There 's music in the deep. 

There 's quiet in the deep : — 
Above, let tides and tempests rave. 
And earth-born whirlwinds wake the wave ; 
Above, let care and fear contend. 
With sin and sorrow to the end ; 
Here, far beneath the tainted foam. 
That frets above our peaceful home. 
We dream in joy, and wake in love. 
Nor know the rage that yells above. 

There 's quiet in the deep. 



118 THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 



THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 

Who bleeds in the desert, faint, naked, and torn, 

Left lonely to wait for the coming of morn ? 

The last sigh from his breast, the last drop from his 

heart. 
The last tear from his eyelid, seems ready to part. 
He looks to the east with a death-swimming eye. 
Once more the blest beams of the morning to spy ; 
For penniless, friendless, and houseless he 's lying, 
And he shudders to think, that in darkness he 's dying. 
Yon meteor ! — 't is ended as soon as begun — 
Yon gleam of the lightning ! it is not the sun ; 
They brighten and pass — but the glory of day 
Is warm while it shines, and does good on its way. 
How brightly the morning breaks out from the east ! 
Who walks down the path to get tithes for his priest ? * 
It is not the Robber who plundered and fled ; 
'Tis a Levite. He turns from the wretched his head. 
Who walks in his robes from Jerusalem's halls ? 
Who comes to Samaria from Ilia's walls 1 
There is pride in his step — there is hate in his eye ; 
There is scorn on his lip, as he proudly walks by. 
'T is thy Priest, thy proud city, now splendid and fair; 
A few years shall pass thee, — and who shall be 

there ? 

• Numbers xviii. 



THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 119 

Mount Gerizim looks on the valleys that spread 
From the foot of high Ebal, to Esdrelon's head ; 
The torrent of Kison rolls black through the plain, 
And Tabor sends out its fresh floods to that main, 
Which, purpled with fishes, flows rich with the dies 
That flash from their fins, and shine out from their 

eyes.* 
How sweet are the streams : but how purer the foun- 
tain. 
That gushes and wells from Samaria's mountain ! 
From Galilee's city the Cuthite comes out. 
And by Jordan-washed Thirza, with purpose devout, 
To pay at the altar of Gerizim's shrine, 
And ofier his incense of oil and of wine. 
He follows his heart, that with eagerness longs 
For Samaria's anthems, and Syria's songs. 

He sees the poor Hebrew : he stops on the way. 
— By the side of the wretched 't is better to pray. 
Than to visit the holiest temple that stands 
In the thrice blessed places of Palestine's lands. 
The oil that was meant for Mount Gerizim's ground, 
Would better be poured on the suflTerer's wound ; 
For no incense more sweetly, ntore purely can rise 
From the altars of earth to the throne of the skies, 
No libation more rich can be offered below, 
Than that which is tendered to ang-uish and woe. 



* D'Anville says the fish from which the famous purple die was obtained, 
were shell-fish j but this Is doubted. 



120 THE NOSEGAY. 



THE NOSEGAY. 

I 'll pull a bunch of buds and flowers, 

And tie a ribbon round them, 
If you '11 but think in your lonely hours, 

Of the sweet little girl that bound them. 

I '11 cull the earliest that put forth. 
And those that last the longest ; 

And the bud, that boasts the fairest birth. 
Shall cling to the stem that 's strongest. 

I 've run about the garden walks, 

And searched among the dew. Sir ; — 

These fragrant flowers, these tender stalks, 
I 've plucked them all for you, Sir. 

So here 's your bunch of buds and flowers, 
And here 's the ribbon round them ; 

And here, to cheer your saddened hours. 
Is the sweet little girl that bound them. 



THE STRING AROUND MY FINGER. 121 



THE STRING AROUND MY FINGER 

" Et haec olim meminisse juvabit." 

The bell that strikes the warning hour, 
Reminds me that I should not linger, 

And winds around my heart its power, 
Tight as the string around my finger. 

A sweet good-night I give, and then 

Far from my thoughts I need must fling her, 

Who blessed that lovely evening, when 
She tied the string around my finger. 

Lovely and virtuous, kind and fair, 

A sweet-toned bell, O ! who shall ring her ! 

Of her let bell men all beware. 

Who ties such strings around their finger. 

What shall I do ? — I '11 sit me down, 
And, in my leisure hours, I '11 sing her 

Who gave me neither smile nor frown. 
But tied a thread around my finger. 

Now may the quiet star-lit hours 

Their gentlest dews and perfumes bring her ; 
And morning show its sweetest flowers 

To her whose string is round my finger. 



122 SALMON RIVER. 

And never more may I forget 

The spot where I so long did linger ;- 
But watch another chance, and get 
Another string around my finger. 



SALMON RIVER.* 

Hie viridis tenera prsetexit arundine ripas' 
Mincius. — Virgil. 

'Tis a sweet stream — and so, 'tis true, are all 
That undisturbed, save by the harmless brawl 
Of mimic rapid or slight waterfall, 

Pursue their way 
By mossy bank, and darkly waving wood, 
By rock^ that since the deluge fixed has stood, 
Showing to sun and moon their crisping flood 

By night and day. 

But yet, there 's something in its humble rank, 
Something in its pure wave and sloping bank. 
Where the deer sported, and the young fawn drank 

With unscared look ; 
There 's much in its wild history, that teems 
With all that 's superstitious — and that seems 
To match our fancy and eke out our dreams. 

In that small brook. 

* This river enters into the Connecticut at East Haddam. 



SALMON RIVER. 123 

Havoc has been upon its peaceful plain, 

And blood has dropped there, like the drops of rain ; 

The corn grows o'er the still graves of the slain — 

And many a quiver, 
Filled from the reeds that grew on yonder hill. 
Has spent itself in carnage. Now 'tis still, 
And whistling ploughboys oft their runlets fill 

From Salmon River. 

Here say old men, the Indian Magi made. 
Their spells by moonlight ; or beneath the shade 
That shrouds sequestered rock, or dark'ning glade, 

Or tangled dell. 
Here Philip came, and Miantonimo, 
And asked about their fortunes long ago. 
As Saul to Endor, that her witch might show 

Old Samuel. ^ 

And here the black fox roved, that howled and shook 
His thick tail to the hunters, by the brook 
Where they pursued their game, and him mistook 

For earthly fox ;* 
Thinking to shoot him like a shaggy bear. 
And his soft peltry, stripped and dressed to wear, 
Or lay a trap, and from his quiet lair 

Transfer him to a box. 

Such are the tales they tell. 'Tis hard to rhyme 
About a little and unnoticed stream. 
That few have heard of — but it is a theme 
I chance to love ; 



124 THE BLACK FOX OF SALMON RIVER. 

And one day I may tune my rye-straw reed, 
And whistle to the note of many a deed 
Done on this river — which, if there be need, 
I '11 try to prove. 



THE BLACK FOX OF SALMON RIVER. 

The lines below are founded on a legend, that is as well authenticated 
as any superstition of the kind ; and as current in the place where it 
originated, as could be expected of one that possesses so little interest 

" How cold, how beautiful, how bright. 
The cloudless heaven above us shines ; 

But 't is a howling winter's night— 
'T would freeze the very forest pines. 

" The winds are up, while mortals sleep ; 

The stars look forth when eyes are shut; 
The bolted snow lies drifted deep 

Around our poor and lonely hut. 

" With silent step and listening ear. 
With bow and arrow, dog, and gun, 

We '11 mark his track, for his prowl we hear, 
Now is our time — come on, come on." 

O'er many a fence, through many a wood, 
Following the dog's bewildered scent, 

In anxious haste and earnest mood. 
The Indian and the white man went. 



THE BLACK FOX OF SALMON RIVER. 125 

The gun is cocked, the bow is bent, 
The dog stands with uplifted paw, 

And ball and arrow swift are sent, 
Aimed at the prowler's very jaw. 

— The ball, to kill that fox, is run 

Not in a mould by mortals made ! 
The arrow which that fox should shun, 

W^s never shaped from earthly reed ! 

The Indian Druids of the wood 

Know where the fatal arrows grow — 

They spring not by the summer flood, 

They pierce not through the winter snow ! 

Why cowers the dog, whose snuffing nose 
Was never once deceived till now ? 

And why, amid the chilling snows, 
Does either hunter wipe his brow ? 

For once they see his fearful den, 
'T is a dark cloud that slowly moves 

By night around the homes of men. 
By day — along the stream it loves. 

Again the dog is on his track. 

The hunters chase o'er dale and hill, 

They may not, though they would, look back, 
They must go forward — forward still. 

Onward they go, and never turn, 
Spending a night that meets no day ; 



126 ONE that's on the sea. 

For them shall never morning sun, 
Light them upon their endless way. 

The hut is desolate, and there 
The famished dog alone returns ; 

On the cold steps he makes his lair, 
By the shut door he lays his bones. 



9 



Now the tired sportsman leans his gun 

Against the ruins of the site, 
And ponders on the hunting done 

By the lost wanderers of the night. 

And there the little country girls 

Will stop to whisper, and listen, and look, 
And tell, while dressing their sunny curls, 

Of the Black Fox of Salmon Brook. 



ONE THAT'S ON THE SEA. 

With gallant sail and streamer gay. 

Sweeping along the splendid bay. 

That, thronged by thousands, seems to greet 

The bearer of a precious freight. 

The Cadmus comes ; and every wave 

Is glad the welcome prow to lave. 

What are the ship and freight to me — 
I look for one that 's on the sea. 



ONE THAT 'S ON THE SEA. 127 

"Welcome Fayette," the million cries ; 
From heart to heart the ardor flies, 
And drum, and bell, and cannon noise, 
In concord with a nation's voice. 
Is pealing through a grateful land. 
And all go with him. — Here I stand, 

Musing on one that 's dear to me, 

Yet sailing on the dangerous sea. 

Be thy days happy here, Fayette — 
Long may they be so — long — but yet 
To me there 's one that, dearest still. 
Clings to my heart and chains my will. 
His languid limbs and feverish head 
Are laid upon a sea-sick bed. 

Perhaps his thoughts are fixed on me, 
While tossed upon the mighty sea. 

I am alone. Let thousands throng 
The noisy, crowded streets along : 
Sweet be the beam of Beauty's gaze — 
Loud be the shout that Freemen raise — 
Let Patriots grasp thy noble hand, 
And welcome thee to Freedom's land ; — 

Alas ! I think of none but he 

Who sails across the foaming sea. 

So, when the moon is shedding light 
Upon the stars, and all is bright 



128 PRESIDENTIAL COTILLON. 

And beautiful ; when every eye 
Looks upwards to the glorious sky ; 
How have I turned my silent gaze 
To catch one little taper's blaze : — 
'T was from a spot too dear to me, 
The home of him that 's on the sea. 



PRESIDENTIAL COTILLON. 

Carmina turn melius, cum venerit IPSE canemus. 

ViRG. Bucolica, Eel. ix. 

Castle Garden was splendid one night — though the 

wet 
Put off for some evenings the ball for Fayette. 
The arrangements were rich, the occasion was pat, 
And the whole was in style ; — but I sing not of that. 

Ye Graces attend to a poet's condition, 

And bring your right heels to the second position ; 

I sing of a dance, such as never was seen 

On fairy-tripped meadow, or muse-haunted green. 

The length of the room, and the height of the hall. 
The price of the tickets, the cost of the ball, 
And the sums due for dresses, I 'm glad to forget — 
I 'd rather pay off the whole national debt. 



PRESIDENTIAL COTILLON. 129 

The fiddlers were Editors, ranged on the spot, 
There were strings that were rosined, and strings that 

were not ; 
Who furnished the instruments I do not know, 
But each of the band drew a very long how. 

They screwed up their pegs, and they shouldered their 

fiddles ; 
They fingered the notes of their hey-diddle-diddles ; 
Spectators looked on — they were nnany a million, 
To see the performers in this gfeat cotillon. 

One Adams led Miss Diplomacy out. 
And Crawford Miss Money — an heiress no doubt ; 
And Jackson Miss Dangerous, a tragical actor, i 
And Clay, Madame Tariff*, of home manufacture. 

There was room for a set just below, and each buck 
Had a belle by his side, like a drake with his duck ; 
But the first set attracted the whole room's attention, 
For they cut the capers most worthy of mention. 

They bowed and they courtesied, round went all eight 
Right foot was the word, and chasse was the gait ; 
Then they balanced to partners, and turned them about, 
And each one, alternate, was in and was out. 

Some kicked and some floundered, some set and some 

bounded. 
Till the music was drowned — the figure confounded ; 
9 



130 SCIRE FACIAS. 

Some danced dos a dosy and some danced contrefacej 
And some promenaded — and all lost their place. 

In the midst of this great pantomimic halleite, 
What guest should arrive but the great La Fayette ! 
The dancers all bowed, and the fiddlers changed tune, 
Like Apollo's banjo to the man in the moon. 

How sweet were the notes, and how bold was the strain ! 
O, when shall we list to such concord again ? 
The hall was sky-covered with Freedom's bright arch, 
And it rung to the music of Liberty's march. 



SCIRE FACIAS.* 

THE BAR versus THE DOCKET. 

There were but sixty-nine new entries on the docket of the Hartford 
County Court, at a late session. One of the most important causes is re- 
ported below. 

This action was brought to get cash from the pocket 
Of a debtor absconding and absent, called Docket — 
For damage sustained by the Bar, through the laches'^ 
Of him by whose means the said Bar cut their dashes. 
They copied the constable, thinking that he 
Might have goods in his hands, and be made Garni- 
shee ;1^ 

* Make him to know. f Neglect. 

\ One who, being supposed to have in his hands the property of an ab- 
sconded debtor, is cited to show whether he has or not. 



SCIRE FACIAS. 



isi 



Who, being thus summoned to show cause, appeared 
To state to the court why he should not be sheared.* 

Whereas, said the Plaintiffs, you owe us our living 
By ass^umpsit implied, and the costs you must give in— 
You have cheated us out of our bread and our butter, 
Et alia enormia,^ too numerous to utter. 

Thus solemnly spoke the Bar's counsel, and sighed — 
The Garnishee plainly and frankly replied, 
That he had no effects, and could not get enough 
To pay his own debt, which he thought rather tough. 

Then came pleas and rejoinders, rebutters, demurrers, 
Such as Chitty would plough into Richard Roe's fur- 
rows ; — 
Cross questions, and very cross answers, to suit — 
So the gist of the case was the point in dispute. if 

The Judges looked grave, as indeed well they might, 
For one party was wrong, and the other not right ; 
The sweeper himself thought it cruel to sue 
A man, just because he had nothing to do. 

The Docket non ested,^ the Garnishee proved 

That the chattels were gone, and the assets removed — 

• Not a law term, but rather a termination in law. 
f And other enormities. 

X This is usually the fact before the County Court, and indeed before all 
other Courts. 
§ Not to be found. 



132 JERUSALEM. 

That they had not been heard of for full half a year, 
So he took to the Statute, and swore himself clear. 

The case being simple in English, the Bench 
Resorted, of course, to their old Norman French ; 
But the Bar being frightened, thought best to defer it, 
And pray out the writ latitat et discurrit.* 

Then a motion was made by the learned debaters. 
That the sheriff should call out the whole comitatus — f 
Read the act — tell the 'posse, instanter to hook it. 
And send the whole hue and cry after the Docket. 



JKRUSALEM. 



The following intelligence from Constantinople was of the 11th Octo- 
ber, 1824. — " A severe earthquake is said to have taken place at Jerusalem, 
which has destroyed great part of that city, shaken down the Mosque of 
Omar, and reduced the Holy Sepulchre to ruins from top to bottom." 

Four lamps were burning o'er two mighty graves — 
Godfrey's and Baldwin's — Salem's Christian kings ; 

And holy light glanced from Helena's naves, 

Fed with the incense which the Pilgrim brings, — 
While through the pannelled roof the cedar flings 

Its sainted arms o'er choir, and roof, and dome. 
And every porphyry-pillared cloister rings 

To every kneeler there its " welcome home," 

As every lip breathes out, "O Lord, thy kingdom 
come." 

* Lurks and wanders. f Posse Comitafts— power of the Count7. 



JERUSALEM. 133 

A mosque was garnished with its crescent moons, 
And a clear voice called Mussulmans to prayer. 

There were the splendors of Judea's thrones — 

There were the trophies which its conquerors wear- 
All but the truth, the holy truth, w^as there : — 

For there, with lip profane, the crier stood, 

And him from the tall minaret you might hear, 

Singing to all whose steps had thither trod, 

That verse misunderstood, " There is no God but God." 

Hark ! did the Pilgrim tremble as he kneeled ? 

And did the turbaned Turk his sins confess ? 
Those mighty hands the elements that wield. 

That mighty power that knows to curse or bless, 

Is over all ; and in whatever dress 
His suppliants crowd around him, He can see 

Their heart, in city or in wilderness. 
And probe its core, and make its blindness flee, 
Owning Him very God, the only Deity. 

There was an earthquake once that rent thy fane, 
Proud Julian ; when (against the prophecy 

Of Him who lived, and died, and rose again, 

" That one stone on another should not lie,") 
#Thou wouldst rebuild that Jewish masonry 

To mock the eternal word. — The earth below 
Gushed out in fire ; and from the brazen sky. 

And from the boiling seas such wrath did flow, 

As saw not Shinar's plain, nor Babel's overthrow. 



134 JERUSALEM. 

Another earthquake comes. Dome, roof, and wall 
Tremble ; and headlong to the grassy bank, 

And in the muddied stream the fragments fall, 
While the rent chasm spread its jaws, and drank 
At one huge draught, the sediment, which sank 

In Salem's drained goblet. Mighty power ! 

Thou whom we all should worship, praise, and 
thank. 

Where was thy mercy in that awful hour, 

When hell moved from beneath, and thine own heaven 
did lower ? 

Say, Pilate's palaces — proud Herod's towers — 

Say, gate of Bethlehem, did your arches quake ? 
Thy pool, Bethesda, was it filled with showers ? 

Calm Gihon, did the jar thy waters wake ? 

Tomb of thee, Mary — Virgin — did it shake ? 
Glowed thy bought field, Aceldama, with blood ? 

Where were the shudderings Calvary might make ? 
Did sainted Mount Moriah send a flood, 
To wash away the spot where once a God had stood ? 

Lost Salem of the Jews — great sepulchre 
Of all profane and of all holy things — . 

Where Jew, and Turk, and Gentile yet concur 
To make thee what thou art ! thy history brings 
Thoughts mixed of joy and woe. The whole earth 
rings 

With the sad truth which He has prophesied. 
Who would have sheltered with his holy wings 



JERUSALEM. 135 

Thee and thy children. You his power defied : 
You scourged him while he lived, and mocked him as 
he died ! 

There is a star in the untroubled sky, 

That caught the first light which its Maker made — 
It led the hymn of other orbs on high ; — 

'T will shine when all the fires of heaven shall fade. 

Pilgrims at Salem's porch, be that your aid ! 
For it has kept its watch on Palestine ! 

Look to its holy light, nor be dismayed, 
Though broken is each consecrated shrine, 
Though crushed and ruined all — which men have 
called divine. 



Note.— Godfrey and Baldwin were the first Christian Kings at Jerusa- 
lem. The Empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, built the 
church of the sepulchre on Mount Calvary. The walls are of stone and the 
roof of cedar. The four lamps which light it are very costly. It is kept 
in repair by the oflerings of Pilgrims who resort to it. The Mosque was 
originally a Jewish Temple. The Emperor Julian undertook to rebuild 
the temple of Jerusalem at very great expense, to disprove the prophecy 
of our Saviour, as it was understood by the Jews ; but the work and the 
workmen were destroyed by an earthquake. The pools of Bethesda and 
Gihon— the tomb of the Virgin Mary, and of King Jehoshaphat— the pillar 
of Absalom — the tomb of Zachariah — and the campo santo, or holy field, 
which is supposed to have been purchased with the price of Judas's trea- 
son, are, or were lately, the most interesting parts of Jerusalem. 



136 ISAIAH, CHAPTER XXXV. 



ISAIAH, CHAPTER XXXV. 

A ROSE shall bloom in the lonely place, 
A wild shall echo with sounds of joy, 

For heaven's own gladness its bounds shall grace, 
And forms angelic their songs employ. 

And Lebanon's cedars shall rustle their boughs. 
And fan their leaves in the scented air; 

And Carmel and Sharon shall pay their vows, 
And shout, for the glory of God is there. 

O, say to the fearful, be strong of heart. 
He comes in vengeance, but not for thee ; 

For thee He comes, his might to impart 
To the trembling hand and the feeble knee. 

The blind shall see, the deaf shall hear. 
The dumb shall raise their notes for Him, 

The lame shall leap like the unharmed deer. 
And the thirsty shall drink of the holy stream. 

And the parched ground shall become a pool, 
And the thirsty land a dew-washed mead, 

And where the wildest beast held rule, 
The harmless of his fold shall feed. 



THE INDIAN SUMMER. 137 

There is a way, and a holy way, 

Where the unclean foot shall never tread, 

But from it the lowly shall not stray. 
To it the penitent shall be led. 

No lion shall rouse him from his lair. 
Nor wild beast raven in foaming rage ; 

But the redeemed of the earth shall there 
Pursue their peaceful pilgrimagfe. 

The ransomed of God shall return to him 
With a chorus of joy to an angel's lay ; 

With a tear of- grief shall no eye be dim. 
For sorrow and sighing shall flee away. 



THE INDIAN SUMMER. 

What is there sadd'ning in the Autumn leaves ? 
Have they that " green and yellow melancholy" 
That the sweet poet spake of? — Had he seen 
Our variegated woods, when first the frost 
Turns into beauty all October's charms — 
When the dread fever quits us — when the storms 
Of the wild Equinox, with all its wet. 
Has left the land, as the first deluge left it, 
With a bright bow of many colors hung 
Upon the forest tops — he had not sighed. 



138 WRITTEN FOR AN ALBUM. 

The moon slays longest for the Hunter now : 
The trees cast down their fruitage, and the blithe 
And busy squirrel hoards his winter store : 
While man enjoys the breeze that sweeps along 
The bright blue sky above him, and that bends 
Magnificently all the forest's pride, 
Or whispers through the evergreens, and asks, 
" What is there sadd'ning in the Autumn leaves ?" 



WRITTEN FOR AN ALBUM. 

See to your book, young lady ; let it be 
An index, to your life — each page be pure. 
By vanity uncolored, and by vice 
Unspotted. Cheerful be each modest leaf, 
Not rude ; and pious be each written page. 
Without hypocrisy, be it devout ; 
Without moroseness, be it serious ; 
If sportive, innocent : and if a tear 
Blot its white margin, let it drop for those 
Whose wickedness needs pity more than hate. 
Hate no one — hate their vices, not themselves. 
Spare many leaves for charity — that flower 
That better than the rose's first white bud 
Becomes a woman's bosom. There we seek 
And there we find it first. Such be your book, 
And such, young lady, always may you be. 



ON THE LOSS OF A PIOUS FRIEND. 139 



ON THE LOSS OF A PIOUS FRIEND. 

imitated from the 67th chapter of Isaiah. 

Who shall weep when the righteous die ? 

Who shall mourn when the good depart ? 
When the soul of the godly away shall fly, 

Who shall lay the loss to heart ? 

He has gone into peace — he has laid him down 
To sleep till the dawn of a brighter day ; 

And he shall wake on that holy morn, 

When sorrow and sighing shall flee away. 

But ye who worship in sin and shame 

Your idol gods, whate'er they be ; 
Who scoff" in your pride at your Maker's name, 

By the pebbly stream and the shady tree — 

Hope in your mountains, and hope in your streams, 
Bow down in their worship and loudly pray ; 

Trust in your strength and believe in your dreams, 
But the wind shall carry them all away. 

There 's one who drank at a purer fountain. 
One who was washed in a purer flood : 

He shall inherit a holier mountain. 
He shall worship a holier God. 



140 THE TWO COMETS. 

But the sinner shall utterly fail and die — 
Whelmed in the waves of a troubled sea ; 

And God from his throne of light on high 
Shall say, there is no peace for thee. 



THE TWO C0:METS. 

There were two visible at the time this was written j and for the verses, 
they were, on other accounts, strictly occasional. 

There once dwelt in Olympus some notable oddities, 
For their wild singularities called Gods and God- 
desses. — 
But one in particular beat 'em all hollow, 
Whose name, style, and title was Phoebus Apollo. 

Now Phceb. was a genius — his hand he could turn 
To any thing, every thing genius can learn : 
Bright, sensible, graceful, cute, spirited, handy, 
Well bred, well behaved — a celestial Dandy ! 
An eloquent god, though he did n't say much ; 
But he drew a long bow, spoke Greek, Latin, and 

Dutch ; 
A doctor, a poet, a soarer, a diver, 
And of horses in harness an excellent driver. 

He would tackle his steeds to the wheels of the sun, 
And he drove up the east every morning, hut one ; 
When young Phaeton begged of his daddy at five, 
To stay with Aurora a day, and he 'd drive. 



THE TWO COMETS. 141 

So good-natured Phoebus gave Phaey the seat, 
With his mittens, change, waybill, and stage-horn 

complete ; 
To the breeze of the morning he shook his bright locks, 
Blew the lamps of the night out, and mounted the 

box. 
The crack of his whip, like the breaking of day. 
Warmed the wax in the ears of the leaders, and they 
With a snort, like the fog of the morning, cleared out 
For the west, as young Phaey meant to get there 

about 
Two hours before sunset. 

He looked at his ''turnip" 
And to make the delay of the old line concern up, 
He gave 'em the reins ; and from Aries to Cancer, 
The style of his drive on the road seemed to answer; 
But at Leo, the ears of the near-wheel horse pricked, 
And at Virgo the heels of the off leader kicked ; 
Over Libra the whiffle-tree broke in the middle. 
And the traces snapped short, like the strings of a 

fiddle. 
One wheel struck near Scorpio, who gave it a roll. 
And set it to buzz, like a top, round the pole ; 
While the other whizzed back with its linchpin and 

hub. 
Or, more learnedly speaking, its nucleus or nub ; 
And, whether in earnest, or whether in fun, 
He carried away a few locks of the sun. 



142 TO A YOUNG FRIEND LEARNING THE FLUTE. 

The State of poor Phaeton's coach was a blue one, 
And Jupiter ordered Apollo a new one ; 
But our driver felt rather too proud to say "Whoa," 
Letting horses, and harness, and every thing go 
At their terrified pleasure abroad ; and the muse 
Says, they cut to this day just what capers they 

choose ; 
That the eyes of the chargers as meteors shine forth ; 
That their manes stream along in the lights of the 

north; 
That the wheels which are missing are comets, that 

run 
As fast as they did when they carried the sun ; 
And 3till pushing forward, though never arriving. 
Think the west is before them, and Phaeton driving. 



TO A YOUNG FRIEND LEARNING TO PLAY 
THE FLUTE. 

There 's a wild harp, which unconfined by rule 
Of science, varies with the varying air. 
And sympathizes with the free-born wind ; 
Swelling, whene'er the tempest swells, or sad 
When the soft western-breeze in moans goes down, 
And sighs, and dies away. 'T is sweet to mark 
Its tone, and listen in some musing mood 
To its strange cadence. Be your music such, 
And let it die at sundown if you please. 



EXTRACTS FROM NEW-YEAR's VERSES FOR 1825. 143 



EXTRACTS FROM NEW-YEAR'S VERSES 
FOR 1825. 

I LOVE the " Universal Yankee Nation," 

Where'er they are — whate'er they are about, 

Whatever be their wealth, or rank, or station, 
Their character or conduct. They are out 

Upon parole, or sufF'rance, or probation, 

On horse-back, or on foot — and some, no doubt, 

In coaches, or in Congress ! — bless the land, 

It is a thing I cannot understand. 

By Yankee, I mean every man that 's bom 
Within a tract of country, bounded East 

By the Atlantic — South, (not by Cape Horn) 
But by Long Island Sound, and on the West 

By New York State ; northward by the forlorn 
Hope of the British, (a poor rhyme at best) 

Mountains and rocks and rivers far away, 

That see six months of night, and six of day. 

These Yankees are a scattered race — each breeze 
That sweeps a prairie, or that wakes a wave, 

Is their acquaintance ; forests, lakes, and seas 

Know them — adventurous, cunning, tough, and 
brave. 

Shrewd and inquisitive ; they know their P's 

And Q's. They know to earn, and get, and save ; 



144 EXTRACTS FROM NEW- YEAR 's VERSES FOR 1825. 

And if they break a thing, why, they can mend it : — 
Their cash they get abroad, and then come home to 
spend it. 

Plymouth and Bunker Hill are Yankee places. 
And them I '11 celebrate with pen and ink ; 

They are the themes of glory — and the traces 
Of blood and prayer are on their brow and brink ; 

And every reverential thought which graces, 
The Yankee heart, that will but stop and think 

Of what those fathers were, is like the tear 

Which children shed upon a parent's bier. 

That silent, moonlight march to Bunker Hill, 
With spades, and swords, bold hearts, and ready 
hands. 

That Spartan step without their flutes — that still. 
Hushed, solemn music of the heart, commands 

More than the trumpet's echo — 't is the thrill 

That thoughts of well-loved homes, and streams, and 
lands, 

Awaken when men go into the fight, 

As did the men at Bunker Hill that night. 

And blessed be that ever-coming wave, 

That wets the rock where the old Pilgrims landed ; 
Thrice blessed be that foothold of the brave. 

Where Freedom stood, and Tyranny was stranded ; 
Where Persecution, baffled, found its grave. 

And naked Liberty — there — single handed, 



THE DOG-WATCH. 145 

Met foe and famine, pestilence and wrath, 

And stayed till nought was left to cross her path. 

Such themes are far too eloquent for me, 
And few or none can do them justice ; yet 

'T would be a proud day in one's life to see 
The look of Webster — or to hear Fayette 

Give his last blessing to that Hill, and be 

Near the brave spot with Warren's life-blood wet — 

— That glorious lachrymal of patriot'' s tears — 

And boast of such a sight in after years. 



THE DOG-WATCH. 

On the homeward passage, in the merchant service, the mate keeps the 
watch from six to eight. This is called the Dog-Watch. 

Sweep on, the wave is curled with foam, 
Sweep on, the tide is bearing home, 

Sweep on, the breeze is fair; 
The sun himself hastes to the West, 
Where lies the home that I love best, — 
Wave, tide, and breeze may rage or rest 

When I get there. 

The twilight smiles upon the sea, 

The stars shine out to pilot me ; 

And one, amidst the glare 

Of all their host, — the evening star 
10 



146 SONNET. 

Stoops sweetly o'er my home afar, 
And says no storm my course shall mar, 
Till I get there. 

The listening of an anxious ear, 

The gaze that brightens through a tear. 

Out-feel the watcher's round. 
/ only hear the breakers roar, 
I only see my own dear shore, 
'Tis J that soon shall tread once more 

My native ground. 



SONNET. 

TO A LADY ON THE DEATH OF MRS. . 

Weep, if you have a tear to spare, 
For her who once like you was fair ; 
Who led like you the dance and song, 
And tripped bright fashion's paths along- 
Who in maturer years looked round 
With circumspective eye — that found 
Beneath the circuit of the sun 
Nought it could safely rest upon. 

That eye looked upward, far away. 

And gazed upon another day. 

Closed its pure lid on all below — 

Sin, folly, vanity, and woe : 

On Death's black wing her willing flight 

Rose into uncreated light. 



AN OCCURRENCE ON BOARD A BRIG. 147 



SKETCH OF AN OCCURRENCE ON BOARD 
A BRIG. 



The sun's beam and the moon's beam' check the sea, 

The light wave smiles in both, and sportingly 

Catching the silver on its deep blue side, 

Throws it in spangles on the westering tide. 

And tints the golden edges of the beam 

That last and sweetest trembles on the stream ; 

For sure 't is moonlight — see the sun give way, 

And yon fair orb light up another day, 

A calmer, softer morning than the hour 

Of real morn, howe'er bedecked with flower, 

Or bud, or song, or dew-drop — the sun's feast. 

Or all the gorgeous glories of the East. 

What boat is that ! yon lonely little boat. 
Sculling and rippling through the shades, that float 
On yon sequestered bay ; and mark the trees. 
Bending so beautifully in the breeze. 
It steals from out the shade, and now the tide 
Presses its bow and chafes against its side ; 
She seems to wear her way with little strength. 
Feeble, but yet determined, till at length 
The skifl* comes near and nearer — " boat ahoy ! 
What scull is that and who are you, my boy ?" 



148 AN OCCURRENCE ON BOARD A BRIG. 

II. 

There is a tear in that young, sullen eye, 
That looks not like a boy's tear, soon to dry ; 
There is a tremor on his lip and chin, 
A mixed up look — half feeling and half sin. 
Panting with toil ar anger, now he stands 
Upon the deck, and wrings his blistered hands, 
Too proud to weep, — too young to wear the face 
Of manhood steeled to danger, pain, disgrace ; 
There was in lip, and cheek, and brow, and eye, 
A gesture of each thought's variety. 
While leaning sadly 'gainst the vessel's wale. 
He told, in broken words, a common tale. 
He was a runaway, — had left the shore, 
Stolen a boat, a jacket, and an oar, 
And come on board our brig, " in hopes that we," 
(He said,) " would take him with us out to sea." 
The captain hushed at once the poor boy's fears : 
— We want a cabin boy — dry up your tears ; 
The wind calls for us, spread the loftiest sail. 
And catch the top-most favor of the gale ; 
The tide sets out, the ocean 's on the lea, 
Gayly we '11 plough our furrow through the sea. 

in. 

The eye, the ear, the nostril, and the heart. 
How they do snuff and listen, gaze and start, 
When the brave vessel strains each brace and line, 
Mounts the mad wave, and, dashing through its brine, 



AN OCCURRENCE ON BOARD A BRIG. 149 
I 

Flies from the Ihick'ning anger of the spray, 
And doubly swift leaps forward on her way ; 
While the keen seaman takes his watchful stand, 
And feels the tiller tremble in his hand — 
Or lashed securely on the sea-washed side. 
Heaves lead, or log, and sings how fast they glide. 

But that young boy. I think 1 see him now, 
With death upon his eye-lid and his brow ; 
That eye so blue and clear, that forehead fair. 
Those ringlets, too, of close-curled, glossy hair, 
That hectic flush, which to the last grew bright, 
As his next world's young dawning grew more light ;— 
Yes ! that young boy — the danger and the pain 
Of hardships past — the thought that ne'er again 
His foot might press the paths his boyhood loved. 
Or his hand lift the latchet unreproved, 
His ear hear sweet forgiveness — or his eye 
See those he loved even from his infancy, — 
And then the giddy whirl of his young brain. 
Upon the rushing, changing, tumbling main. 
Without a friend to look at, by his side. 
He wept, and said his prayers, and groaned, and died. 

IV. 

They plunged him, when the winds were up, and when 
The sharks played round this floating home of men ; 
When the strained timbers groaned in every wave. 
And the rough cordage screamed above his grave ; 



150 AN OCCURRENCE ON BOARD A BRIG. 

1 

When the wild winds wove many a sailor's shroud 
Of darkness in the red-edged thunder cloud ; 
While in the dread black pauses of the storm, 
The stunned ear heard his moan, the shut eye saw his 

form. 
Had it been calm — had dolphins played in rings, 
And flying fishes sunned their wetted wings ; 
Had the sweet south but breathed to smooth the sea. 
And evening, for one hour looked tranquilly ; 
Or had some tomb-like iceberg floated on 
The spot, as the retiring sun went down. 
Or the black Peteril on mid-ocean's surge 
Sung to the Albatross the poor boy's dirge, — 
One might have blessed the far ofl*, long lost spot 
Where to the deepest depths he sunk and was forgot. 
Silent they bore him to the vessel's side. 
Silent the hammock and the rope they eyed. 
With thoughtful look, a moment there they stood, 
And gazed an instant on the yawning flood ; 
A sailor's prayer, a sailor's tear were all 
They had to give him, but a sailor's pall — 
They plunged him in the water, and the shark 
Plunged after him, down, down, into the dark. 



On rolls the storm — once more the sky is blue. 
And there is mirth among the hardy crew ; 
The port is gained, the vessel waits the breeze, 
To bear her once again o'er tides and seas 



AN OCCURRENCE ON BOARD A BRIG. 151 

Back to her home : our native hills once more 
Send the land breezes from the well-known shore, 
And, as the joys and pains of memory come, 
The questioned pilot tells us news of home. 

Once more upon the land ! — What sweet-eyed girl 
With long bright locks, clustered in many a curl 
Round her white polished forehead, sits alone 
In anxious sadness on yon wave-washed stone ! 
Her eye looks searchingly from face to face. 
One long-sought look or lineament to trace ; 
In vain the ear grates to each loud rough cry 
Of boisterous welcome, or of coarse reply, — 
In vain that hand is stretched his hand to grasp. 
In vain those arms his well-loved form to clasp ; 
A few shrill piercing words — 't was all she said — 
" O tell me, is my brother" "he is dead." — 

As the struck bird will rise upon the wing, 
And whirl aloft in agonizing swing, 
Then seek the darkest cover of the wood. 
To pant, and bleed, and die in solitude — 
That fair form flitted to the forest shade, 
Where sank, and died alone, the broken-hearted maid. 



152 STANZAS. 



STANZAS. 

The dead leaves strew the forest walk, 

And withered are the pale wild flowers ; 
The frost hangs black'ning on the stalk, 

The dew-drops fall in frozen showers. 

Gone are the Spring's green sprouting bowers, 
Gone Summer's rich and mantling vines, 

And Autumn, with her yellow hours. 
On hill and plain no longer shines. 

I learned a clear and wild-toned note. 

That rose and swelled from yonder tree — 
A gay bird, with too sweet a throat. 

There perched and raised her song for me. 

The winter comes, and where is she ? 
Away — where summer wings will rove, 

Where buds are fresh, and every tree 
Is vocal with the notes of love. 

Too mild the breath of southern sky 
Too fresh the flower that blushes there. 

The northern breeze that rustles by. 

Finds leaves too green, and buds too fair ; 
No forest tree stands stripped and bare, 

No stream beneath the ice is dead. 



REVERY. 153 

No mountain top with sleety hair 
Bends o'er the snows its reverend head. 

Go there, with all the birds, — and seek 
A happier clime, with livelier flight, 

Kiss, with the sun, the evening's cheek. 
And leave me lonely with the night. 

— I '11 gaze upon the cold north light. 

And mark where all its glories shone — 
See — that it all is fair and bright. 

Feel — that it all is cold and gone. 



REVERY.' 



Yes, there are thoughts that have no sound — such 

thoughts 
That no coined phrase of words can utter them ! 
The tongue would syllable their shapes in vain — 
The cautious pen, even in a master's hand, 
Finds nothing at its point to mark them with. 
No earthly note can touch these airy chords ; 
'Tis silent music — indescribable. 
We hear it when the ear is shut, and see 
Its beauties when the eye is closed in sleep ; 
We feel it when the nerves are all at rest — 
When the heart stops, and the charmed soul throbs on. 
The immaterial pulses of that soul 
Will revel to its harmonies, as if 



154 NEW year's verses. 

Even in this mortal life 't were " fancy free" 
From the gross business of the body's care. 

These are not of our make — they come sometimes, 
When the sad sleeper has forgot his woes, 
And given his agonies awhile to rest. 
Through the still watches of the solemn night. 
They pace with fairy feet the labyrinths 
Of the brain's thousand cares, and lightly sweep 
Its pains away for many a star-lit hour — 
— But then the morning comes, and where are they ? 
Perhaps they visit to console the good — 
Perchance to hurry on to his dark fate 
The bad, and strew with flowers his way to death. 



NEW-YEAR'S VERSES. 

FOR THE CARRIER OF THE MIRROR. 1826. 

The carrier is a poor old man — 
See his gray locks, his wrinkles scan, 

Look at him and admire ! 
His coat is thin, his jacket torn, 
All but his fob and pockets worn — 

Such is his poor attire. 

And what the scorching sun could throw- 
And what the winter's pelting snow 
Could give him, he has stood. 



155 



There is earthly torment lacking — 
One other process — that of hacking : — 
He has not been reviewed. 

Now for our annual New- Year's song. 
Short was the year, and not too long 

Shall be the rhymer's strain : 
It tells of all that all well know. 
'T is mixed of folly and of woe — 

Of happiness, and pain. 

How like the seasons was the year ! 

Now rough, and rude — now mild, and clear, 

Like March, and June together : 
Now sweeping on with fury's blast — 
Now stilly breathing on the past, 

And calming all its weather. 

When streams were stiff and snow was deep- 
When Statesmen's promises were cheap, 

And honesty near frozen ; 
When votes were counted. State by State, 
Mid friends and foes — mid joy and hate, 

A President was chosen. 

Curst was the siroc, steaming hot. 
When patriot against patriot 

Was set in mad array ; i 

And doubly curst that poisoned trail, 
That lingers, when the sweeping gale 
Has moaned and died away. 



156 NEW year's verses. 

Our tree was fair in trunk and shoot, 
Its verdant boughs bore flower and fruit 

That ripened in the sun ; 
Why should the bramble shoot its thorn, 
When of the fruits these stems had borne 

The hand could pluck but one. 



Fayette ! the skies were bright to thee. 
And our small State right proud may be 

That on thy stormy track. 
Her sons were guides ; for she may boast, 
That Allen brought thee to our coast. 

And Morris bore thee back. 

How did the blessed rainbow shed 
Its gorgeous colors on your head, 

When first you saw the shore : 
How did it arch above your sail, 
And span the bay, and tinge the gale. 

And dye the waters o'er. 

The Cadmus saw its tinted line, — 
It smiled upon the Brandywine : v 

And how it shone on high, 
He who can paint a rainbow's hues, 
And dip his pencil in its dews. 

May better tell than I. 



NEW year's verses. 157 

Warm be your hearth, and full your store 
And open as your hand, your door; — 

And gently on your heart 
Fall every blessing Heaven can shed, 
Upon the virtuous patriot's head, 

Till soul and body part. 



I hear a sorrowing western breeze, 

Sigh from Champlain's dark ice-girt seas- 
Yet 't is a wind-harp strain ; — 

It mourns so sweetly, that its tone 

Has consolation in its moan, 
And soothing in its pain. 

Brave Downie ! thou had'st often seen 
The bold in combat, and had'st been 

Where decks and waves were gore ; 
Thy gallant foe, thy noble friend. 
Has met in peace a Christian's end, — 

Macdonough is no more. 

He sleeps in quiet, by the side 

Of wife and children dear ; — nor pride 

Nor pomp his tomb adorning : 
The clods, the dust, his body cover, 
But round him shall the angels hover, 

*' Till the bright morning." 



]58 NEW year's verses. 

On Groton heights, the lazy cow 

Is grazing round the grass-grown brow 

That once, in days gone by, 
Was rough with pike and bayonet, 
Stained with the carnage red and wet, 

Of brave men met to die. 

They died. — And must their memories die ? 
O ! the weeper's sob and the mourner's sigl 

Are quickly, quickly gone. 
To the devotion of that band. 
That cutlass drew and rampart manned. 
That fought their foeman hand to hand. 
That saved the honor of your land. 
And died where their intrenchments stand 

Ye will not raise a stone. 

But be it so. Whate'er the cause. 

They fought not thus for vain applause — i 

'T was patriot duty pressed them ; 
And in their rough and gory shroud, 
Without the purple of the proud, 

God in his mercy rest them. 

Yet shall those graves, unknown so long 
To memory's tear and glory's song. 

Be ever blest. 
Green, rank, and bright the turf shall grov 
Above the mouldered bones below — 

"Rest, warriors, rest." 



NEW YEAR'S VER^S. 159 



Now sullenly the damp winds blow, 
And muddily the waters flow, 

And fast the rain-drops fall ; 
Such is the time to hope that soon 
A heaven-bright sun, a cloudless moon, 

Shall shine upon us all. 

The time is up, the morrow's dawn 
Breaks on a purer, holier morn 

Than Pagan new-year's day ; 
It comes not out in mirth and song. 
It calls the vain world's passing throng, 

To meet, and praise, and pray. 

How should this hour, between the day 
When God to Israel's array 

Proclaimed the holy rest — 
And that which saw a Saviour rise, 
With our redemption to the skies — 

How should such hour be blessed. 



160 TO A DEAF AND DUMB LADY. 



TO A DEAF AND DUMB LADY. 

I WISH — 't is no concern of mine, 
But yet I wish that you would try 

The painter's brush, and trace the line 
Of grace or beauty by the eye ; — 

And teach the hand the tongue's strange art 

To tell the stories of the heart. 

For you have never heard a sound, — 
Have never uttered with the tongue 

The music of your looks, nor found 
A voice their sweetness to prolong. 

Shall such soul in such body dwell, 

A pearl within a pearly shell ? 

Try ! words are colors ; — Feeling lays 
Their tints on memory's open page. 

Now bright, now soft, now dim their rays. 
They gleam in youth and fade in age. 

Yet when their hues are gone, each stain 

That daubed their beauties will remain. 

A purer pallet grace your hand, 

A purer pencil follow on, 
(Obedient to the eye's command,) 

The object that you think upon. 



AN EVENING CLOUD. 161 

For you, from half our frailties free, 
Might paint a page of purity. 

I 've seen what I would vou could see, 
The calm, the breeze, the gale, the motion 

Of elements combined — yet free, 
Each for itself, to vex the ocean ; 

And thought that words would ill supply 

The cravings of the straining eye. 

I've seen what you have seen, the sky 
As pure as innocence could make it. 

As blue and bright as beauty's eye. 
With not a tearful wink to shake it. 

Ask not for words in such an hour. 

Nor the ear's listening — listening power. 

Sense is not competent to tell 

The strivings of the clay-bound soul ; 

Thoughts high as heaven and deep as hell, 
Will awfully around it roll ; 

And words are sacrilege, that dare 

Its fearful workings to declare. 



AN EVENING CLOUD. 

Yon cloud, 't is bright and beautiful — it floats 
Alone in God's horizon-— on its edge 
11 



162 ON THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER. 

The stars seem hung like pearls — it looks as pure 
As 't were an angePs shroud — the white cymar 
Of Purity just peeping through its folds, 
To give a pitying look on this sad world. 

Go visit it, and find that all is false ; 
Its glories are but fog — and its white form 
Is plighted to some thunder-gust. — 
The rain, the wind, the lightning have their source 
In such bright meetings. Gaze not on the clouds, 
flowever beautiful — Gaze at the sky — 
The clear, blue, tranquil, fixed, and glorious sky. 



ON THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER, 

EMPEROR OF THE RUSSIAS, AT TAGANROK. 

Napoleon died upon Helena's rock ; — 

Round and beneath were piled and stored the waves, 
Mighty and fathomjess. Atlantic's shock 
• Recoiled, and through its deepest, coldest caves, 

. Of pillared spar and coral architraves, • 

Did ocean's homage to that strange man's death. 

Bad was he, but yet great. Of kings, of slaves. 
Of popes, the equal dread. His latest breath 
Fell where the waters washed to shore his sea-green 
wreath. 

But thou, by Asian Azof's shallow pool. 
Where the Don pours its tributary mud, 



ON THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER. 163 

Where nought but cold Cimmerian blasts have rule, 
And Kalmuck's hungry Tartars fight for food ; 
Thou, whom we once thought wise, and great, and 
good — 

Peace, such as thou did'st wish to all, abide 
With thee — a despot's peace. So let the flood 

Of memory stagnate round thee, like the tide 

That washes Taganrok from Azofs shallowest side. 

Then let the Cossack trail his barb'rous lance, 
And learn to do the obsequies of Czars ; 

Teach his wild horse around thy grave to prance, 
And know the sounds of amens from hurras. 
He, paid in plunder for his wounds and scars. 

Rejoices that another chance may come, 

When southward, in the strife of Turkish wars. 
That horse shall hear Tambourgi's muffled drum, 

And trample, not as now, on many a lordly tomb. 



Fair liberty ! Nor he of Helen's Isle, 

Nor he of Azof's side, were born of thee ; 
Children of cruelty, long nursed by guile, 

They claim no tear of tribute from the free. 

Then let the despots rest. But where is he 
Who, pure in life, majestic in his fall, 

Lay down beneath his native cedar-tree ? 
Potomac's wave. Mount Vernon's grassy pall. 
That wraps his relics round, O! these are worth 
them all. 



164 SNOW IN APEIL. 



SNOW IN APRIL. 

" My head is gray, but not with years." 

An April snow ! — 't is as the head of youth 
Just fresh'ning in the spring-time of its hopes, 
And glancing to the sunbeam the bright eye, 
And to the first rose pouting its rich lip, 
Or turning to the morning's blush its cheek, 
And to the morning's music its young ear — 
Dimpling its chin, as April's rain-drops fall 
On the brook's eddy, — 't is as if such head 
Of smile, and bloom, and dimple, were adorned 
With the white locks of age, that venerably 
Spread monitorial sadness — premature; 
Weaving the bleached and silvery threads of time, 
On the bright texture of a glad boy's eyelash. 

So move we on. I 've seen the eye of age 
Bright to the last as that of Moses was, — 
I 've marked the foot-falls of a man, whose years 
Were more than eighty- — firm and active too. 

Who has not seen the young lid close in pain. 
The young knee tremble, and the young heart sink, 
And age, old age, encourage and support. 
Even as the tree stands, when the buds are nipped. 
Tenacious 'till they would fall off, — and then 



TO A LADY WHO HAD LOST A RELATIVE. 165 

Bearing the loss ! — I 'we wandered from the theme — 
Why should I not? "My heart is in the coffin," 
Long shall I " pause till it come back to me." 



TO A LADY WHO HAD LOST A RELATIVE. 

No more to grace the happy hearth, 
To grace the cheerful board, no more 

To light with smiles the misty path 
That leads to the eternal shore, 
Arrived — embarked, and all is o'er. 

The sunny curl, the bright blue eye, 
The form, the soul are gone before, 

And we must follow on, and die. 

And she, the aged one, bereaved, 

Sits lonely in a daughter's chair. 
Submissive to God's will, yet grieved, 

Raising to Heaven the silent prayer ; 

Her faith and love and hopes are there— 
But where are yours ? and where are mine ? 

The prospect, is it bright or drear ? 
The comfort, human or divine ? 



166 THE SWEETBRIER. 



THE MOCKING-BIRD. 

It has a strange wild note — ^that Mocking-bird, 

I 've heard him whistle to the passer by, 

-And scold like any parrot. Now his note 

Mounts to the play-ground of the lark — high up, 

Quite to the sky. And then again it falls. 

As a lost star falls, down into the marsh, 

The veriest puddle — but it stops not thus ; 

'T will croak like any bull-frog, or 't will squeal 

Like an old rat, caught tight in the toothed spring 

Of man's humane contrivancy — and then 

Rejoicing, mock the trap, and yell out "c^ee^e." 

So mock we all, and so we imitate 

The good a little, and the bad a deal. 

The notes of heaven, of earth, sometimes of hell 

Are on our tongue-tips. Hear the little wretch. 

How he does sing, and scream, and mock us all. 



THE SWEETBRIER. 

Our sweet autumnal western-scented wind 
Robs of its odors none so sweet a flower, 

In all the blooming waste it left behind. 

As that the sweetbrier yields it. And the shower 



SONG IF 1 COULD LOVE. 167 

Wets not a rose that buds in beauty's bower 
One half so lovely, — yet it grows along 

The poor girl's pathway — by the poor man's door. 
Such are the simple folks it dwells among : 
And humble as the bud, so humble be the song. 

I love it, for it takes its untouched stand 
Not in the vase that sculptors decorate, — 

Its sweetness all is of my native land, 

And e'en its fragrant leaf has not its mate 
Among the perfumes which the rich and great 

Buy from the odors of the spicy east. 

You love your flowers and plants — and will you 
hate 

The little four-leaved rose that I love best. 

That freshest will awake, and sweetest go to rest ? 



SONG— IF I COULD LOVE, 

If I could love, I 'd find me out 

A roguish, laughing eye. 
A cheek to blush, a lip to pout, 

A pure, kind heart, to sigh. 

A fairy hand, to touch and glance, 
From note to note with glee, 

A fairy foot to trip the dance 
And lead it down with me. 



168 QUI TRANSTULIT SUSTINET. 

A soul to share in all my fun, 

And feel for all my woes, 
And as our little life should run 

To take it as it goes. 

And O, when follies all have fled 
And solemn thoughts shall rise, 

To soothe me on my dying bed 
And meet me in the skies. 

Such thoughts are vain, too vain — yet why 
Should you such thoughts reprove — 

O pity, pity me, for I 

Am poor, and cannot love. 



QUI TRANSTULIT SUSTINET.* 

The warrior may twine round his temples the leaves 

Of the Laurel that Victory throws him; 
The lover may smile as he joyously weaves 

The Myrtle that beauty bestows him. 
The Poet may gather his ivy, and gaze 

On its evergreen honors enchanted ; 
But what are their ivys, their myrtles, and bays, 

To the vine that our forefathers planted. 

Let France boast the lily — let Britain be vain 
Of her thistles, and shamrocks, and roses ; 

♦ Motto of the Arms of Connecticut. 



DIRGE. 169 

Our shrubs and our blossoms sprout out from the main, 
And our bold shore their beauty discloses. 

With a home and a country, a soul and a God, 
What freeman with terrors is haunted, 

Bedecked with the dewdrops and washed with the flood 
Is the vine that our forefathers planted. 

Then a health to the brave, and the worthy, that bore 

The vine whose rich clusters o'ershade us ; 
They planted its root by the rocks of the shore. 

And called down His blessing who made us. 
— And a health to the Fair who will raise up a brave 

Generation of Yankees undaunted. 
To nourish, to cherish, to honor, and save 

The viuQ that our forefathers planted. 



DIRGE. 

ON THE DEATH OF ADAMS AND JEFFERSON.* 

Toll not the bell, and muffle not 
The drum, nor fire the funeral shot ; 
Nor half way hoist our banner now — 
Nor weed the arm, nor cloud the brow, — 
But high to heaven be raised the eye. 
And holy be the rapturous sigh : 
And still be cannon, drum, and bell, 
Nor let the flag of sorrow tell. 

* Attempted to the tune of " Roslin Castle." 



170 TO A LADY FOR A NOSEGAY. 

Now low are laid their honored forms, 
But from the clods, and dust, and worms. 
Their spirits wake, and breathing, rise 
Above the sun's own glorious skies. 
And happy be their airy track — 
We may not, would not, call them back ; — 
For patriot hands may clasp with theirs, 
And Angel harps may hymn their prayers. 



TO A LADY FOR A NOSEGAY. 

— " Plenis manibus, ferte lilia, ferte." 

Who does not love a flower ? 
Its hues are taken from the light, 
Which summer's sun flings pure and bright, 
In scattered and prismatic hues. 
That shine and smile in dropping dews ; 
Its fragrance from the sweetest air, 
Its form from all that 's light and fair ; — 

Who does not love a flower ? 

A lesson to the giver. 
Not in the streets to bloom and shine. 
Not in the rout of noise and wine, 
Not trampled by the rushing crowd, 
Not in paved streets and cities proud— 
From danger safe, from blighting free, 
Pure, simple, artless, let it be 

An emblem of the giver. 



STIFLED WITH SWEETS. 171 



"STIFLED WITH SWEETS." 

Was I not served in open day 

With buds and flowers ! — and whence came they ? 
In the still night, as poets tell, 
Queen Mab rings out her little bell, 
And sends her sylphs on moonlight beams, 
To weave our happy, youthful dreams, 
( — Ere morning crimsons for the day 
That comes to chase them all away — ) 
To whisper in the slumberer's ear, 
Thoughts full of young and buoyant cheer ; 
To put such nectar to the lip 
As waking mortals never sip — 
To place a rosebud on each eye. 
To purify the sleeper's sigh, 
And best of all, beside his couch 
Leave on his cheek a Fairy's touch. 

But who, in honest open day. 

Sends buds and flowers — and whence come they ? 



172 SONNET. 



A RAINY DAY. 

It rains. What lady loves a rainy day ? 
Not she who puts prunella on her foot, 
Zephyrs around her neck, and silken socks 
Upon a graceful ancle — nor yet she 
Who sports her tasselled parasol along 
The walks, beau-crowded on some sunny noon, 
Or trips in muslin, in a winter's night 
On a cold sleigh-ride — to a distant ball. 
She loves a rainy day who sweeps the hearth, 
And threads the busy needle, or applies 
The scissors to the torn or threadbare sleeve ; 
Who blesses God that she has friends and home ; 
Who, in the pelting of the storm, will think 
Of some poor neighbour that she can befriend ; 
Who trims the lamp at night and reads aloud, 
To a young brother, tales he loves to hear ; 
Or ventures cheerfully abroad, to watch 
The bedside of some sick and suffering friend, — 
Administering that best of medicine. 
Kindness, and tender care, and cheering hope ; 
— Such are not sad, e'en on a rainy day. 



TO THE MOON. 178 



SONNET. 
To 



— She was a lovely one — her shape was light 

And delicately flexible ; her eye 
Might have been black, or blue, — but it was bright, 

Though beaming not on every passer-by ; 

'T was very modest and a little shy. 
The eyelash seemed to shade the very cheek ; 

That had the color of a sunset sky, 
Not rosy — but a soft and heavenly streak 
For which the arm might strike — the heart might 
break — 

And a soft gentle voice, that kindly sweet 
Accosted one she chanced to overtake. 

While walking slowly on iambic feet. 
In tones that fell as soft as heaven's own dew — 
Who was it ! dear young Lady, was it you ? 



TO THE MOON. 

" O, thou."— Claud Halcro." 



Bless thy bright face ! though often blessed before 

By raving maniac and by pensive fool ; 

One would say something more — but who as yet, 



174 TO THE MOON. 

When looking at thee in the deep blue sky, 

Could tell the poorest thought that struck his heart ? 

Yet all have tried, and all have tried in vain. 

At thee, poor planet, is the first attempt 

That the young rhymster ventures. And the sigh 

The boyish lover heaves, is at the Moon. 

Bards, who — ere Milton sung or Shakspeare played 

The dirge of sorrow, or the song of love, 

Bards, who had higher soared than Fesole, 

Knew better of the Moon. 'T was there they found 

Vain thoughts, lost hopes, and fancy's happy dreams. 

And all sweet sounds, such as have fled afar 

From waking discords, and from daylight jars. 

There Ariosto puts the widow's weeds 

When she, new wedded, smiles abroad again, 

And there the sad maid's innocence — 't is there 

That broken vows, and empty promises, 

All good intentions, with no answering deed 

To anchor them on the substantial earth. 

Are shrewdly packed. — And could he think that thou. 

So bright, so pure of aspect, so serene, 

Art the mere storehouse of our faults and crimes ? 

I 'd rather think as puling rhymsters think, 

Or love-sick maidens fancy — Yea, prefer ^ 

The dairy notion that thou art but cheese. 

Green cheese — than thus misdoubt thy honest face. 



THE GRAVE-YARD. 



17^ 



THE GRAVE-YARD 

'T IS morning on the sunny sod, 
Where lingering footsteps late have trod ; 
'T is on the melting snow, 
That shrouds the graves of those below ; 
'T is morning to each sprouting thing. 
That greenly smiles because 't is spring ; 
'T is morning on the marble stones, 
That designate their owners' bones j 
'T is morning to the young and fair, 
That walk, and laugh, and loiter there. 
Above let spring in brightness glow, 
A brighter morning smiles below. 

There is a beam, that breaks upon 
The lone forsaken buried one ; 
And, clearer than that dawning ray, 
Which gives the first sweet light of day, 
Sheds on the Christian's soul a light 
To which the noonday sun is night ; 
And shows the path his Saviour trod. 
When, rising, he returned to God. 



176 THE SEA-BIRD S SONG 



THE SEA-BIRD'S SONG. 

On the deep is the mariner's danger, 

On the deep is the mariner's death ; 
Who, to fear of the tempest a stranger, 
Sees the last bubble burst of his breath ? 
'T is the sea-bird, sea-bird, sea-bird, 

Lone looker on despair; 
The sea-bird, sea-bird, sea-bird, 
The only witness there. 

Who watches their course, who so mildly 
Careen to the kiss of the breeze ? 

Who lists to their shrieks, who so wildly 
Are clasped in the arms of the seas ? 
'T is the sea-bird, &c. 

Who hovers on high o'er the lover, 
And her who has clung to his neck ? 

Whose wing is the wing that can cover, 
With its shadow, the foundering wreck ? 
'T is the sea-bird, &c. 

My eye in the light of the billow, 
My wing on the wake of the wave ; 

I shall take to my breast for a pillow, 
The shroud of the fair and the brave. 
I 'm a sea-bird, &;c. 



i 



STANZAS. 

My foot on tlie iceberg has lighted. 

When hoarse the wild winds veer about ; 
My eye, when the bark is benighted, 
Sees the lamp of the Light-house go out. 
I 'm the sea-bird, sea-bird," sea-bird, 

Lone looker on despair ; 
The sea-bird, sea-bird, sea-bird, 
The only Avitness there. 



jii 



STANZAS 



On the lake of young life is a fairy boat. 

Like the sweet new moon in a summer sky : 
Through a calm of brightness it seems to float, 
And in light and beauty its course to ply. 
As sudden as a cricket's spring 

Its feathery paddles dip the seas, 
As gayly as the hum-bird's wing 

Its sails arrest the scented breeze ; 
And pennons bright and streamers gay 
Flutter above the diamond spray, 
As the keel cuts its wimpling way. 

A little boy — they call him Love — 
With dimpled cheek and sunny brow, 

And pinions like a nestling dove, 
Sits laughing on the fairy prow. 
12 



178 STANZAS. 

And one as rosy bright as he, 

Bearing his torch of purest light, 
With more of joy and less of glee. 

Trims the gay bark, and shapes aright 
The course, as they distance to weather and lee 
The scud of the sky, and the foam of the sea. 

Two forms are their lading, two hearts are their care, 
And precious the charge that they joy to convey ; 
The young and the happy, the brave and the fair, 
Have sped on their journey, how blithely away ! 
But as the moon, which shone but now 

A silver streak of heavenly light, 
With added glory on her brow 
Now nobly walks the queen of night — 
And firmly moves, though clouds arise, 
By storm and tempest fiercely driven, 
Shrouding the blue and starry skies, 

And darkening all the lights of heaven — 
Thus sped the boat ; each wale became 
Of strong and more enduring frame. 
And sternly to the sweeping blast 
Stood out the tall and gallant mast. 

That boy has strength and courage high, 

And manhood lights with thought his eye ; 

And he, the pilot, sits demure 

In dignity, serene, secure. 

Yes, all have left their brightness now, 

A brighter hope is on each brow ; 



HYMN. 179 

No fancied chart, of fairy bays 
And elfin isles, direct their ways — 
A heavenly guide sits kindly there. 
Directing the course of the brave and the fair; 
In yon blessed place be their anchor cast, 
And holy the haven they find at last. 



HYMN 

FOR THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE HARTFORD COUNTY 
AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 1S26. 

To Thee, O God, the Shepherd Kings 

Their earliest homage paid. 
And wafted upon angel wings 

Their worship was conveyed. 

And they who "watched their flocks by night,' 

Were first to learn thy grace, — 
Were first to seek by dawning light, 

Their Saviour's dwelling-place. 

The hills and vales, the woods and streams. 
The fruits and flowers are thine ; 

Where'er the sun can send its beams, 
Or the mild moon can shine. 

By Thee, the Spring puts forth its leaves, 
By Thee, comes down the rain, 



180 STANZAS. 

By Thee, the yellow harvest sheaves 
Stand ripening on the plain. 

When Winter comes in storm and wrath, 
Thy soothing voice is heard ; 

As round the Farmer's peaceful hearth 
Is read thy holy word. 

Thus are we fostered by Thy care, 

Supported by Thy hand ; 
Our heritage is rich and fair, 

And this Thy chosen land. 

Be Joseph yet a fruitful vine,* 
Whose branches leap the wall, 

Make Thou its clusters ever Thine, 
Jehovah, God of all. 



STANZAS, 



My hopes were as bright as the bow, when the storm 

Is rolling away before it, 
And Love pointed on them so bright a form 

That not a cloud came o'er it. 

The bow has gone, and the night come on. 

And all is dark and dreary ; 
Love has departed, and hope has flown 

To the silent grave of Mary. 

* Genesis xlix. 22. 



TO A CHILD, TriE DAUGHTER OF A FRIEND. 181 

My thoughts were as playful as billows, that kiss 
The 'rocks and the sands of the shore ; 

And fancy would whisper, like them, of a bliss 
Such as mortal ne'er met before. 

But the billows are lost in a whelming wave, 

Whose voice shall be never weary ; 
And Fancy has withered, like weeds on the grave 

Of my loved, my ruined Mary. 

There was joy in her cheek, there was love in her eye. 

And innocence played around her; 
But her laugh of mirth was changed to a sigh 

When the toils of deception bound her. 

Now dead is he that beguiled my love, 

And she that I loved so dearly ; 
And I shall join, in the heaven above, 

My bright, angelic Mary. 



TO A CHILD, THE DAUGHTER OF A 
FRIEND. 

I PRAY thee by thy mother's face. 

And by her look, and by her eye, 
By every decent matron grace 
That hovered round the resting-place 
Where thy young head did lie ; 



182 'THE INVALID. 

And by the voice that soothed thine ear, 
The hymn, the smile, the sigh, the tear 

That matched thy changeful mood ; 
By every prayer thy mother taught — 
By every blessing that she sought, 

I pray thee to be good. 

Is not the nestling, when it wakes 

Its eye upon the wood around. 
And on its new fledged pinions takes 
Its taste of leaves and boughs and brakes — 

Of motion, sight, and sound — 
Is it not like the parent ? Then 
Be like thy mother, child, and when 

Thy wing is bold and strong. 
As pure and steady be thy light — 
As high and heavenly be thy flight — 

As holy be thy song. 



THE INVALID 

ON THE EAST END OF LONG ISLAND. 

Feeble, with languid, stafl'-supported step. 
And heavy eye and heavier heart, I tread 
The sun-scorched sand, and breathe the sultry air 
That hovers on the road. One eflbrt more. 
One mile or two at most, and then I stand 
Where I can feel the balmy breath of heaven. 



THE INVALID. 183 

The grassy lane, o'er-arched with boughs and leaves, 
Runs its green vista to a small bright point, 
And that point is the ocean. Faint the limbs, 
And all the body tires — but for the soul. 
It hath its holyday in such a spot. 

A moment rest we on the only stone 

In all the alley — wipe the sweating brow. 

And drop the eye upon the turf around. 

The notes of birds are heard in other groves, 

And everywhere are welcome ; for the song 

Of gladness and of innocence is sweet 

To all. But here and to the weary too 

'T is exquisite : for with it comes the sound, 

Not of the wind-fanned leaves and rustling boughs, 

And wavy tree-tops only — but the voice 

Of ocean. 

He has heard its mighty sound 
Whose bark was on its awful waters, when 
The billows swept the deck and rioted, 
, Mixed with the winds, round all its gallant spars. 
He too has heard its moanings, who, becalmed 
Lies like a small thing, helpless and alone 
Upon a rolling, waste immensity. 
And he has heard another tone, who marks 
Its furious dance among the leeward rocks, 
Where he must bear its ravings o'er his bones. 
But in this calm and leafy grove, the sound 



184 THE INVALID. 

Is smoother, softer, sweeter, than the harp 

That the winds love to play on. Let us rise 

And view the Giant that can tune his voice 

To every passion — that can touch each chord 

That vibrates in a saint's or sinner's heart. 

— But to the shore. O ! what a depth of wave,» 

And what a length of foam ! That solemn voice ! 

'T is louder and yet sweeter — They mistake 

Who call it hoarse — they never on the white 

And pebbly beach in peace and quietness 

Have heard it roar — or watched the spray 

That, venturing farthest on the smooth, white sand. 

Kisses, retires, and comes to kiss again. 

Upon the utmost bound, a clear, white jet 
Of water, from the dark green wave, betrays 
The sporting of the whale ; and nearer shore 
The sea-birds rise upon their wetted wings, 
And bear their prey far to their lonely nests. 

The sun sets — and the blushing water turns 

To a blue, star-spread, foam-tipped, wavy sea 

Of beauty. Yonder sweeps a brave white sail, 

Bending as gracefully in evening's breeze 

As a keen skater on the glassy ice. 

And now — even as some hospitable man 

Will light his going guest into the path, 

And bid God bless him, as he speeds his way 

Onward, alone, into the untried dark, 

The Lighthouse — last of friends that ship may see, 



HOW TO CATCH A BLACK-FISH. 185 

Points out the course, till far beyond its beam 
The sea fire of the ocean only shines. 

Away — from all that 's bright, and beautiful ; 

From the fresh breeze and from the glorious view, 

From- all that 's lovely, noble, or sublime. 

To the sick pillow and the feverish bed. 

There may good angels watch me, and good thoughts 

Crowd to my dreaming and my waking hours ; 

For the whole world of waters, the firm land, 

The canopy, with all its suns and stars, 

Its bright, unnumbered systems, all are His, 

And He is everywhere. 



HOW TO CATCH A BLACK-FISH. 

Thomson, the poet of the year, has sung 
And melodized the cautious, sylvan art. 
To lure the trout from underneath the root 
Of some old oak, or tempt him from his rock 
Deep-shelving far beneath the grassy bank, 
Where all is always shadow — to the stream 
That sparkles in the sunbeam. Thence the hook 
Drags him in speckled beauty to the shore. 

The bard of Scotland and of nature sung 
For this, thy praise, sweet Thomson — yea, and he 
Of loftier thought, and bolder hand, declared 
To nymphs and swains where their own Druid slept. 



186 HOW TO CATCH A BLACK-FISH. 

But who shall sing his praise, who tells the world 
The way to catch a black-fish ? Praise, 't is said, 
Is not a plant of mortal soil — 'tis naught — 
And naughty is the wish to cull its weeds. 

Begin then, Muse, and help me to the bait, 
That, when the sea retires, will shelter close 
Beneath the sea-weed side of rocks and stones ; 
And gange,* sweet maid of Hellas — gange my hook 
So that, nor steady pull may draw it off, 
Nor cumbrous thread betray its fell design, — 
Sit on the bow, fair sister to the eight 
Who on Parnassus miss thy absence strange, 
And let me scull to where the young flood lifts 
The rockweed, as the morning breeze wakes up 
The daisy that the lark has slept beside. 
So wakes the Black-fish, and with lazy fin 
Paddles his round white nose in curious search 
For meat untoiled for, yet expected much. 
Beware ! Thy guardian genius with her wings 
Of silkiness — her breath of sea-shell air — 
Her voice the whispering of the smallest bubble 
That rises from the oozy depths around, 
All give thee warning, Touch not ! — 'T is in vain, 
The subtle bait is sought for greedily. 
And swallowed without tasting — next he lies 
Panting and bleeding by the fisher's side. 
And does he pause to moralize ? — No, no, 

* A term well known among fishermen ; and meaning to knit, or by an7 
other mode unite, the hook with the line. 



THE STORM OF WAR. ' 187 



He baits the hook to tempt another on, 
And feast upon their folly. 



THE STORM OF WAR. 

O ! ONCE was felt the storm of war ! 

It had an earthquake's roar ; 
It flashed upon the mountain height, 

And smoked along the shore. 
It thundered in a dreaming ear, 

And up the Farmer sprang ; 
It muttered in a bold true heart. 

And a warrior's harness rang. 

It rumbled by a widow's door, — 

All but her hope did fail : 
It trembled through a leafy grove. 

And a maiden's cheek was pale. 
It steps upon the sleeping sea, 

And waves around it howl ; 
It strides from top to foaming top. 

Out- frowning ocean's scowl. 

And yonder sailed the merchant ship — 
There was peace upon her deck ; 

— Her friendly flag from the mast was torn, 
And the waters whelmed the wreck. 



188 THE STORM OF WAR. 

But the same blast that bore her down 

Filled a gallant daring sail, 
That loved the might of the black'ning storm, 

And laughed in the roaring gale. 

The stream, that was a torrent once, 

Is rippled to a brook. 
The sword is broken, and the spear 

Is but a pruning hook. 
The mother chides her truant boy, 

And keeps him well from harm ; 
While in the grove the happy maid 

Hangs on her lover's arm 

Another breeze is on the sea. 

Another wave is there, 
And floats abroad triumphantly, 

A banner bright and fair ; 
And peaceful hands and happy hearts, 

And gallant spirits keep 
Each star that decks it pure and bright^ 

Above the rolling deep. 



THE MONEY DIGGERS. 189 



THE MONEY DIGGERS. 

It is a fact that two men from Vennont (July 11th, 1827) were working 
by the side of one of the wharves in New-London, for buried money, by 
the advice and recommendation of an old woman of that State, who as- 
sured them that she could distinctly see a box of dollars packed edge-wise. 
The locality was pointed out to an inch, and her only way of discovering 
the treasure was by looking through a stone, which to ordinary optics was 
hardly translucent. For the story of the Spanish Galleon, that left so much 
bullion in and about New London, see Trumbull's history of Connecticut, 
and for Kidd, enquire of the oldest lady you can find. 



THtJS saith The Book — " Permit no witch to live;" 
Hence, Massachusetts hath expelled the race, — 
Connecticut, where swap and dicker thrive, 
Admits not to their foot a resting-place. 
With more of hardihood and less of grace, 
Vermont receives the sisters gray and lean, 
Allows each witch her airy broomstick race, 
O'er mighty rocks and mountains dark with green. 
Where tempests wake their voice, and torrents roar 
between. 

And one there was among that wicked crew, 

To whom the enemy a pebble gave, 

Through which, at long-off distance, she might view 

All treasures of the fathomable wave ; 

And where the Thames' bright billows gently lave, 



190 THE MONEY DIGGERS. 

The grass-grown piles that flank the ruined wharf, 
She sent them forth, those two adventurers brave, 
Where greasy citizens their beverage quaff, 
Jeering at enterprise — aye ready with a laugh. 

They came — those straight-haired, honest meaning 

men. 
Nor question asked they, nor reply did make. 
Albeit their locks were lifted like as when 
Young Hamlet saw his father. And the shake 
Of knocking knees and jaws that seemed to break, 
Told a wild tale of undertaking bold. 
While as the oyster-tongs the chiels did take. 
Dim grew the sight, and every blood-drop cold, 
As knights in scarce romaunt, sung by the bards of old. 

For not in daylight were their rites performed ; 
— When night-capped heads were on their pillow 

laid. 
Sleep-freed from biting care, by thought unharmed. 
Snoring ere word was spoke, or prayer was said — 
'T was then the mattock and the busy spade, 
The pump, the bucket, and the windlass rope 
In busy silence plied the mystic trade. 
While resolution, beckoned on by hope, 
Did sweat and agonize the sought-for chest to ope. 

Beneath the wave, the iron chest is hot. 
Deep growls are heard and reddening eyes are seen^ 
Yet of the Black Dog she had told them not. 
Nor of the aray wild-geese with eyes of green, 



1 



THE GNOME AND THE PADDOCK. 191 

That screamed, and yelled, and hovered close be- 
tween 

The buried gold and the rapacious hand. 

Here should she be, though mountains intervene, 

To scatter, with her crooked vvitch-hazle wand, 
The wave-born sprites, that keep their treasure from 
the land. 

She cannot, may not come, the rotten wharf 
Of mould'ring planks and rusty spikes is there, 
And he who owned a quarter or a half 
Is disappointed, and the witch is — where ? 
Vermont still harbours her — go seek her there. 
The grandam of Joe Strickland — find her nest. 
Where summer icicles and snowballs are, 
Where black swans paddle and where petrils rest — 
Symmes be your trusty guide, and Robert Kidd your 
guest. 



THE GNOME AND THE PADDOCK. 

WHAT THE GNOME SAID TO THE PADDOCK IN A BLASTED 

ROCK.* 

I AM a Gnome, and this old Granite ledge 
My home and habitation, since the days 
When the big floods brake up, and massy rain 

♦ A Paddock is a toad that lives in a lock. 



192 THE GNOME AND THE PADDOCK. 

Fell deluge upon deluge, to the earth, — 
When lightning, hot and hissing, crinkled by 
Each scathed and thunder-blasted twig that showed 
Its leaf above the waters. Years had passed, 
And centuries too, when by this sheltered side 
The Indian built his fire, and ate his samp, 
And laid him down — how quietly — beneath 
The shadow of this rock. 'T was great to him, 
And in a weary land. For yonder, where 
The school-boy flies his kite, and little girls 
Seek four-leaved clover — there the Buffalo 
Led his wild herd. There once, and only once, 
The Mammoth stalked. Thou, Paddock, heard'st his 

tread. 
But I,— I saw him. By this very rock — 
This little ledge he passed. Three stately steps ! 
And every rough and wooded promontory 
Trembled. 

And for his voice — 't was musical, 
And though too sonorous for human ear. 
Yet to a Gnome 't was wondrous — exquisite ; 
For every vein of undiscovered ore 
Rang in full harmony to that bold tone. 
From the wild surface to the lowest depth, 
And through, and round the pillars of the earth, 
Were silver streaks and golden radiants 
That trembled through their courses, when a note 
Congenial waked their low, sweet, solemn sound. 



SONG. 193 

But hush thee, Paddock ! Good-by once for all — 
There comes old Burdick with an iron rod, 
And near him, one who with a powder-flask 
Will blow us both sky-high. Adieu, sweet vestal, 
And when I meet you in a museum 
Do not forget me, dearest ! 



SONG. 

The rocks, the rocks, among the rocks 

My only lover lives ; 
To me the plain, to me the main, 

No fear nor pleasure gives. 

I love not in the sunny day 

To weed and till the ground, 
While my wild lover far away, 
- Hunts with his lazy hound. 

Nor would I be a sailor's wife. 

Too far from me is he ; 
For I must toil, and I must strive^ 

While he is on the sea. 

Give me a lover to my cheek, 

A husband to my arms. 

Nor would I other dowry seek. 

Than hills and rocky farms. 
13 



194 ON THE DEATH OF AN OLD TOWNSMAN. 

The meadow's calms, the ocean's shocks, 

Each ruins or deceives ; 
The rocks, the rocksj among the rocks, 

My only lover lives. 



ON THE DEATH OF AN OLD TOWNSMAN.* 

Young he left thee, poor he left thee, 
Sad he left thee, Emerald Isle — 

When oppression's cloud bereft thee 
Of thy last and saddest smile. 

Here he came, but Ireland ever 
Warmed his heart and filled his thought—^ 
Wandering son of Erin never 

Sought his hearth and found it not. 

Fast by LifFey's lovely borders. 

Broad of wave and darkly deep. 
Fast by Leixlip's leaping waters, 

Parents, friends, and kindred sleep. 

Here he dwelt, and all around him ' 

Blest his warm and honest heart — 

Here he died as first we found him, 
Free from guile and void of art. 

* Attempted for the music of Roaseau's " Dream." 



STANZAS. . 195 

Touched but now with death's cold finger, 
Here he walks with us no more — 

But if spirits ever linger, 

His will haunt the LifFey shore, 



STANZAS 



How well T remember the paths that I trod 
When a boy, with my bait and my light little rod ; 
How eager I went, and how patient I stood. 

And felt not a bite through the whole afternoon ; 
Wet, hungry, and tired, how, at sundown, I came, 
The leaf it was green and the verdure the same. 
But returning I found it so cold and so tame, 

'T was December to me, to the wood it was June. 

I had dwelt where the lovely, the young, and the gay 
Shed light on my path — but I went on my way. 
My errand was fruitless, and tedious my stay. 

And saddened I turned to the home of my youth ; 
Where now is the music, the life, and the glee — 
There are smiles, there are dimples, — they are not 

for me. 
And my faint, sickening spirit too plainly can see. 

How warm was my fancy, how cold is the truth. 



196 IS IT FANCY, OR IS IT FACT? 



"IS IT FANCY, OR IS IT FACT?" 

No more will 1 love, for my Mother is fled, 
My Brother is gone to the seas for his bread, 
And O, my poor Father by whom I am fed, 

How cold is his hand when I take it. 
He has cares, he has sorrows, and wild is his smile 
When I strive all his harrowing thoughts to beguile ; 
I gaze on his anguish, and fancy the while 

That his heart wants but little to break it. 

No more will I love — for my lover is gone. 
At noonday the grasshopper sits by the stone. 
And at twilight the whip-poor-will utters his moan 

Where deep in the wood he is buried. 
'T was there that he wished to be laid, for 't was there 
That truth told its tale, and that love breathed its 

prayer, 
And the heart taught the tongue a sad promise to 
swear 

That he and his love should be married. 

He 's wedded to dust, and I 'm wedded to woe. 
My Father 's distracted, and where shall I go — 
Should I follow my mother — O misery — no, 
I am not, I am not her daughter. 



ON A RAINBOW AT NIGHT. 197 

One hope I can cherish — one form I can seek, 
On one breast I can sigh, to one heart I can speak. 
And the tear I next shed shall fall full on his cheek — 
The brother that ventured the water. 



ON A RAINBOW AT NIGHT. 

The bow that spans the storm is beautiful ; 
Yet — how we view it ! from our very cradle 
E'en to the extreme of our most ripened wisdom 
'T is treated as a toy. Philosophers, 
With bits of glass and one small beam of light, 
Make mimic rainbows upon college walls. 
And lecture upon raindrops — how the light 
Impinges, is refracted, bent and formed, 
Ending with pious hintings to the class 
With what analogies God's light is sent — 
How mathematical his heavenly bow ! 
— The painter daubs it on his varnished cloth. 
And with gamboge and verdigris, makes out 
A tolerable rainbow — to be viewed, 
Admired, and bought by folly's connoisseurs. 
— As silly as the rest, the mother lifts 
Her squalling child, whom rattle will not please. 
Nor pap, nor coral with its silver bells. 
To look upon the rainbow. — But too gross 
Such gaze — and, folding up its heavenly robes, 
"Like as a garment," on the meteor rolls. 



198 TO A FRIEND IN THE NAVY SICK AT HOME. 

" The heavens shall pass away, as doth a scroll" — 
Like as a scroll they stand. O ! who that marked 
That page of Heaven's bright book — when a new light 
Was broad upon his vision — (when the world 
Turned from the sun, and the sun's worldly day) 
But thought — all else forgot — but thought on Thee ; 
Nor painted — nor philosophized — nor smiled. 

The sun is of our system, but the stars 
Are set in Heaven. The day is made for man. 
— At such a time — with such a gloried sky, 
Even man feels that the night is made for God. 



TO A FRIEND IN THE NAVY, SICK AT 
HOME. 

The wave, the wave, the Yankee wave 

That dances white and blue. 
That roars in might, or laughs outright, 

Or smiles and whispers too. 
It is the same, whence'er it came. 

And wheresoe'er it go, — 
In piping gale or plaintive wail, 

In triumph or in woe. 

You 've seen it on mid-ocean's surge 

When war called up its wrath. 
Yelling the fated foeman's dirge, 

And howling round his path, — 



TO A FRIEND IN THE NAVY, SICK AT HOME. 199 

You 've seen it on the playful shore. 

Its cheek upon the sand, 
When winds were still and storms were o'er, 

Kissing the quiet land. 

By every promontory's sweep, 

By every little bay, 
By every shore and every steep 

Where the smooth eddies play, — 
Where'er the silver minim's fin 

Scoops out his tiny cave. 
To paddle or to ponder in. 

You 've seen the Yankee wave. 

How gay ly did it once bear up 

Your little shingle boat. 
And, when a bigger boy, on it 

Your skiff you first did float ; 
And since, upon the broadest deck 

That evex swam the seas. 
You 've raised a penon, proudest yet 

That ever flapped the breeze. 

Soon may you leave your fevered bed, 

As one who quits a wreck, 
And show once more a 's head 

Upon a quarter-deck, — 
Yes ! leave your home, for ocean's foam, 

And join your comrades brave. 
For well I know, of all below, 

You love the Yankee wave. 



200 THE SMACK RACE. 



THE SMACK RACE. 

Are they not beautiful ? how light they float, 
How gracefully they sit upon the wave ! 

The water buoys no surer, fleeter boat, 

None that will Ocean's danger better brave. 
Forget not, too, that sea-washed barrens gave 

A hardy race to man each brace and line, 

Warm hearted and hard handed — all they crave 
Is but to seek and search the boist'rous brine 

Where winters have no sun, and north lights dimly 
shine. 

Thames ! on thy smiling harbour now 
How dips and bends each lively bow, 

As pleased to wanton there. 
And need they longer there to ride ? 
The time is come and fair the tide, 

The wind is fresh and fair. 

Away ! the peak is trimly set. 
The jib with schoot-horn duly wet. 

The trembling helm is true. 
One glass of grog, one signal gun. 
Three cheers for luck and one for fun, — 

Which is the happier crew ? 



THE SMACK RACE. 201 

Over the broad, the blue, the clear, 
The noble harbour, on they steer 

By every well-known spot. 
In sailor's heart, in sea-bird's cry, 
In pilot's thought, in poet's eye, 

When are such scenes forgot ? 

I love them, for the porpoise plays 
In all their bleached and pebbly bays, 

And every haunt explores ; — 
I love them, that the hardy breeze 
Sweeps daily from the healthful seas, 

Blessing the happy shores. 



Now taughter brace the laboring boom. 
Bring the lee gunwale to the foam 

And haul the bonnet flat : 
They have the freshest of the breeze — 
They have the widest of the seas, — 

"We'll beat 'em for all that." 

See ! the wild wind bears down the peak, 
And shows its'shear the garboard streak, 

Loose is the leeward shroud ; 
The helm, a-weather, bears her round 
That hard-sought, hard gained racing ground, 

So elegantly proud. 



202 THE FOOT. 

And now, good luck my honest hearts, 
Well do you bear your dangerous parts, 

And well I wish you all : 
I little know your terms of skill, 
. But you shall have my right good will. 

Whatever chance befall. 

Good wives on shore, good winds at sea, 
Fishing enough where'er you be, 

And very many bites ; 
Plenty of fish and children too. 
Days well employed, and not a few 

Of quiet, happy nights. 



THE FOOT. 

"Aof itov Ctw, xoLi <rov xotffjiov xiv^Cw." 

I SING the Foot. Let every Muse's wing 
Arrange its quills and fan the classic lay — 
For Phoebus had a foot — and Venus blessed 
Had more than that, a foot and ancle too. 
Neptune, as Homer sung, could cause the shades, 
And woods, and mountains tremble with his step. 
Immortal was his foot- fall. Juno bright, 
Stampted, when she scolded forth in Jove's own court. 
'T was Hebe's foot that bore the nectar round. 



THE FOOT. 203 

And Jupiter's great toe that Mulciber 
Leaped from to Lemnos. — But enough of all 
This heathen lore — this pantheon exercise. 

• What when the drum beats, and the panting ranks 
Are joining, closing, moving on the foe — 
When the deep whisper speeds along the line, 
And all must " do or die" — what onward moves 
The heart-pulse and the nerve, the ready hand, 
The eye determined, and the kindling soul ! 
What urges up the bayonet — what mounts 
The desperate height, the ladder and the breach, 
And tramples on the rended, blood-stained flag ? 

What firmest paces on the rampart walk. 
Or softest trips it to a lady's bower, 
Or lightest sports it in the fairy dance. 
Or what, on provocation, first applies 
Its energies to kick a scamp down stairs ? 

O swift Achilles of the tender heel — 
O well-shod Grecians of the classic boots, — 
O Infantry of poets, to whose feet 
Nor boot, nor shoe, nor stocking e'er belonged, 
O Cinderilla of the vitreous sock — 
O Giant-killing Jack with seven leagued strides. 
Assist me to immortalize the foot. 



204 F.ORT GRISWOLDj SEPT. 6, 1781. 



FORT GRISWOLD, SEPT 6, 1781 

What seek ye here — ye desperate band ? 
Why on this rough and rocky land, 

With sly and muffled oar, — 
Why in this red and bright array 
Stealing along the fisher's bay 

Pull ye your boats to shore ? 

Day broke upon that gentlest Sound 
Sequestered, that the sea has found 

In its adventurous roam, 
A halcyon surface — pure and deep, 
And placid as an Infant's sleep 

Cradled and rocked at home. 

What wakes the sleeper ? Harm is near- 
That strange rough whisper in his ear. 

It is a murderer's breath ; 
A thousand bayonets are bright 
Beneath the blessed morning's light. 

Moving to blood and death. 

Land ye and march — but bid farewell 
To this lone Sound, its coming swell 
May moan when none can save ; 



FORT GRISWOLD, SEPT. 6, 1781. 205 

Many shall go, and few return, 
That rock shall be your only urn, 
That sand your only grave. 

Across the river's placid tide, 
With steady stroke is seen to glide 

A little vent'rous boat : 
'T was like the cloud Elijah saw, 
Small as his hand, yet soon to draw 

Its quivered lightnings out. 

'T was like that cloud, for in it went 
A heart to spend and to be spent 

Till the last drop was shed ; 
'T was like that cloud, it had a hand 
That o'er its loved, its native land 

A shadow broad has spread. ' 

Ledyard ! thy morning thought was brave, 
To fight, to conquer, and to save. 

Or fearlessly to die ; 
Well didst thou hold that feeling true, — 
Didst well that purpose bold pursue 

Till death closed down thine eye. 

I dare not tell in these poor rhymes 
That bloody tale of butchering times — 

'T is too well known to all ; 
I write tiot of the foeman's path, 
I write not of the battle's wrath, 

But of the Hero's fall. 



206 I KNOW A BROOK. 

He sleeps where many brave men sleep — 
Near Groton heights — and nibbling sheep 

Their grassy graves have found ; 
Bitt some, they are a few, are laid 
Beneath a little swarded glade 

On Fisher's Island sound. 

The Sound is peaceful now, as when 
It saw that armed array of men ; 

And one old fisher there 
Gave me this tale — 't was he who told ' 
The rough, the headlong, and the bold. 

How their rash figrht should fare. 

He too is dead ; and most are dead 
Who stood or fell, who fought or fled 

On that September day. 
Old man ! thy bones are gently laid 
Close by yon shattered oak tree's shade, 

Beside the fisher's bay. 



I KNOW A BROOK. 

I KNOW a brook that winds its way along 
A dull and stony margin — dwarfish trees 
And barren vegetation mark its course. 
The stern, bold grandeur of the granite rock 
Frowns not upon it — and the smooth, green lawn 



THE DROWNED BOY. 207 

Slopes not to meet it. Nothing there is seen 

Save one pure limpid spring, perennial. 

That oozes from the rock and from the moss. 

There, all that flourishes of bright and green 

Is clustered, there the freshest of the grass 

Laves in the welling rill. No man would think 

In such a cold and barren spot, to find 

Any thing sweet, or pure, or beautiful ; 

But yet, I say, it is the loveliest gush 

— 'T is so sequestered, and so arboured o'er 

With nature's wildness in its summer glow — 

The loveliest gush that ever spouted out 

Upon my wandering path. Through mud and mire, 

O'er many a bramble, many a jagged shoot 

I stumbled, ere I found it. There I placed 

A frail memorial — that, when again 

I should revisit it, the thought might come 

Of the dull tide of life, and that pure spring 

Which he who drinks of never shall thirst more. 



THE DROWNED BOY. 

Sad was the lot, sad was the tale 

Of him who lies unconscious here ; 
His locks are lifted by the gale. 
No mourner comes his loss to wail, 
No friend to wait upon his bier. 



208 THE WIDOWER. 

I 've seen him in some lonely hour 

Gazing npon the bright blue sky, 
And though the black'ning cloud might lour, 
Careless he 'd view the coming shower, . 
Nor heed the storm that muttered by. 

Sad did he seem for one so young, 

'Twas in a bitter mood he smiled, 
And as he paced the path along, 
He had a strange and wayward song, 
And gestured to his measure wild. 

Whether 't was want or cruelty 

That caused his mind thus wild to rove^ 
Or whether to his boyish eye. 
His fancy gave the madd'ning, joy, 
Of ceaseless, hopeless, idle love, 

I know not, — but he never slept, 

Upon a quiet, peaceful bed ; 
He to himself his vigils kept, 
None but himself for him has wept. 

None mourn him now that he is dead. 



THE WIDOWER. 

O DOTH it walk — that spirit bright and pure 
And may it disembodied, ever come 



SATURDAY NIGHT AT SEA. 209 

Back to this earth ? I do not, dare not hope, 

A reappearance of that kindest eye, 

Or of that smoothest cheek or sweetest voice, — 

But can she see my tears, when I, alone, 

Weep by her grave ? and may she leave the throng 

Where angels minister and saints adore, 

To visit this sad earth ! 

When, as the nights 
Of fireside winter gather chilly round, 
I kiss our little child, and lay me down 
Upon a widowed pillow, doth she leave 
Those glorious, holy, heavenly essences, 
Those sacred perfumes round the throne on high, 
To keep a watch on me ? and upon ours ? 
— Her I did love, and I was loved again, — 
And had it been my mortal Tot, instead, 
I would, were I accepted, ask my God, 
For one more look upon my wife and child. 



SATURDAY NIGHT AT SEA. 

It is well known, that naval officers, as well as their seamen, appro- 
priate Saturday night, at sea, to the subject of their " domestic relations," 
over a glass of wine, or of grog, as the case may be. It may not be so 
notorious, that their female friends drink salt water in celebration of this 
nautical vigil. 

A MOTHER Stood by the pebbled shore. 

In her hand she held a bowl — 

" Now I '11 drink a draught of the salted seas 

That broadlv to ma roll ! — 
14 



210 ^ SATURDAY NIGHT AT SEA. 

On them I have an only son, 

Can he forget me quite ? 
O ! if his week away has run, 
He '11 think of me this night. 
And may he never on the track 

Of ocean in its foam, 
Fail to look gladly — kindly back 
To those he left at home. 
I pledge him in the ocean brine, 
Let him pledge me in ruddy wine." 

A sister stood where the breakers fall 

In thunders, on the beach. 
And out were stretched her eager arms, 

For one she could not reach. 
" I '11 dip my hand, my foot, my lip, 

Into the foaming white, 
For sure as this sand the sea doth sip 
He '11 think of me this night. 
And may he never, on the deck. 

Or on the giddy mast. 
In gale or battle, storm or wreck, 
Forget the happy past. 
I pledge him in the ocean brine. 
Let him pledge me in ruddy wine." 

A wife went down to the water's brink, 
And thither a goblet brought ; 

" Here will I drink, and here I '11 think 
As once we two have thought. 



SATURDAY NIGHT AT SEA. i211 

We 've romped by rock, and wood, and shore, 

When moon and stars were bright, 
And he, where'er the tempests roar, 
Will think on me this night. 
And may he ever, ever meet 

With a friend as true and kind, 
But not to-night shall he forget 
The wife he left behind. 
I sip for him the ocean brine. 
He '11 quaff for me the ruddy wine. 

A maid came down with a hasty foot — 

" My lover is far at sea. 
But I '11 fill my cup, and I '11 drink it out 

To him who deserted me. 
Nor mother, nor sister, nor wife, am I, 

His careless heart is light — 
And he will neither weep, nor sigh. 
Nor think of me, this night; — 
He will, HE WILL, a Sailor's heart 

Is true as it is brave. 
From home and love 't will no more part 
Than the keel will quit the wave. 
I pledge thee, Love, in ocean's brine. 
Pledge gayly back in ruddy wine." 



212 FROM ONE ABSENT EDITOR TO ANOTHER. 



EPISTLE FROM ONE ABSENT EDITOR TO 
ANOTHER. 

Subscribers to ye ! J. T. B. 
Where'er ye flit, where'er ye flee — 
And though ye '11 na remember me 

In your braw lodgin, 
I trust ye '11 ha'e the grace to see 

Friends wi'out dodgin. 

gin I were in stage or boat, 
Wi' stuffed valise and dapper coat, 
How blithely wad I ride or float 

On land an' water ; 
But here 1 am na worth a groat — 
'T is nae great matter. 

1 hope, dear sir, it winna vex ye 
To hear I borrow the Galaxy, 
Wherein ye rave at sic as tax ye 

Wi' a that loss — 
But dinna let thae things perplex ye, 
And be na cross. 

I ken ye 're crouse, and gi'e sma' glint 
At rhyme, when there 's nae meaning in 't, 



FROM ONE ABSENT EDITOR TO ANOTHER. 213 

And sae, my verse I weel may stint 

For a' you read on 't ; 
And my puir muse begins to hint 

There 's little need on 't. 

I only meant to let ye ken 
That I, like ither absent men, 
Have not been busy at my pen 

In Hartford City, 
But only scribbled now and then — 
^ "The mair's the pity." 

I greet thee frae the banks and braes 
That saw me in my childish days, 
Where neither sylphs nor pranking fays 

Buttoned my jacket ; 
The nearest / saw, in my strays, 

Was auld Till Becket. 

May you, by Tiber's favored burn. 
Or where Potomac sees the urn 
That patriot-poets stop and turn 

To make a verse on, 
Or 'mid the rigs o' Southern corn, 

Meet nae worse person.* 

» In a note to one of Burns' sweetest songs, " The Land o' the Leal"— 
republished in the Mirror a few months before the above was written— 
Brainard says,-" It may show what too few understand, that nobody can 
write a real Scottish song but a Scotchman. Bad spelling, misapplied pro- 
vincialisms, and cockney sensibility, will never pass as the production of 
Allan Cunningham or Robert Bums." 



214 AN INVOCATION. 



AN INVOCATION. 

O DEATH ! O grave ! O endless world beyond ! 

And Thou, the Holy One, that shuttest up 

What no man openeth, — that openeth 

That which nor man — nor death — nor the filled grave 

Can ever shut ? To Thee, how reverend, 

How humble, and how pure should be our prayer. 

Forgive us, for what are we ! What but worms 

That crawl, and bask, and shine — then writhe and die. 

But there is hope in Heaven. I hear a voice 

That says the dead are blessed, if they die 

In Him who died for them. That whoso lives 

Believing, shall not die eternally. 

— So may we live, and so apply our hearts 

To God's true wisdom in our numbered days. 

That though we be cut down even as the flowers, 

And though we flee like passing shadows by, 

Hereafter we may bloom again, — and stand 

Where all that blooms shall bloom eternally. 

And shadows, like the bitter thoughts of life. 

Can never flit across the holy path. 

Nor darken one forgiving smile of Heaven. 



CHARITY. 215 



CHARITY. 

Sweet Charity ! thou of the kindest voice, 
Of lightest hand, of softest — meekest eye. 
And gentlest footstep, making but the noise 
Of a good angel's pinions floating by. 
Go forth ! but not to dwellings where the sigh 
Of poverty and wretchedness is heard, 
Not to the hovel, nor the human sty, 
Where conscience, ! how burningly, is seared, 
Where Heaven is scarcely known, and Hell but little 
feared. 

Sweet spirit. Go not there. There thou hast been, 
And seen, nor pity, nor relief bestowed % 
By woman's eye, nor by the hand of men. 
On them who bear such miserable load ; 
What votary hast Thou, at their abode ? 
What kind heart brings its tearful off'ring there, 
And, grieved that 't is no more, lifts up to God 
Its humble, earnest, holy, secret prayer. 
Breathed mid the low and vile, in winter's midnight 
air? 

Go to the rich, the gay, and the secure, 
Bold be thy step, and heavy be thy hand. 
Knock loud and long, at Fashion's partial door. 
And swell thy voice to terror's bold command ; 



216 CHARITY. 

And he, who builds upon extortion's sand, 
He, of the purple and the linen fine. 
Owner of widow's stock and orphan's land, 
Shall shuddering turn from his untasted wine, 
And feel, that to do well, his all he should resign. 

Go to the lovely, not in sighing smiles, 
At which the thoughtless fool might smiling sigh, 
— Scatter her freaks, her follies, and her wiles, 
With the stern beauty of religion's eye ; 
Teach her the tear of grief — of shame to dry. 
To drop on frailty meek compassion's balm. 
To do aright — to feel aright — to try 
Her envious, hateful passions first to calm; 
Then shed upon her soul, not on her face thy charm. 

Go to yon Pharisee — the heartless wretch, 
That prates of holiness, and hunts for sin, 
For faults of others ever on the stretch, 
All gaze without, and not one glance within ; 
And worse, much worse, not one kind wish to win 
A sinner back — but to detect, betray. 
And punish. Go and tell him to begin 
Anew — and point him to salvation's way. 
The sermon on the mount to us poor sons of clay. 

Touch not their gold, but touch — Thou canst — their 
heart. 
For there be many, who, with open purse, 
Will greet thee in that market-place, their mart 
Of cold hypocrisy, or something worse : 



CHARITV. * 217 

Unkind and selfish — theirs may be the curse 
" Thy money perish with thee.''' Learn thou them, 
Sweet Charity ! their Mildness to disburse — 
And Self's deep deadly current strong to stem ; 
A sigh shall win a pearl — a tear a diadem. 

How blessed are thy feet. Thy footsteps stray 
From open paths, and seek a grass-grown track 
Through shades impervious to the gaze of day ; 
Onward flies light, a form that turns not back 
At sight of chasm, or torrent never slack ; 
Quiet and bold, and sure the errand speeds, 
Nor doth the kindly deed a blessing lack — 
To sorrow, joy — to anguish, peace succeeds, 
The eye no longer weeps, the heart no longer bleeds. 



ADDENDA. 



The author, in revising his poems for the first edition, made many- 
alterations of them as they originally appeared in the Mirror. As these 
changes may interest some of his readers, a few — the most important of 
them — follow ; and to render them with perspicuity, the revised, with the 
original readings are given— the latter being italicized. 

MATCHIT MOODrS. 

Ere a star can wink, the time, and the place. 

And the seat, — 
Ere the star that falls can run its race. 

The seat of the earthquake's power. 

ON THE DEATH OF COBIMODOEE PERRY. 

A bolder bard may choose a loftier nam£, — 
Another hand may choose another theme, 
May sing of Nelson. 

THE SHAD SPIRiT. 

The Shad Spirit holds his onward course, 
With thejlock that his whistle calls. 
With the flocks which his whistle calls. 

And who can tell him the fated time, — 

And well can he tell the fated time 
To undertake his task. 



220 ADDENDA. 

Though, the wind is light, the wave is white 
With the fleece of the flock that 's near ; 
And he sweeps on high, like the scud of the sky, — 

The wind is light, and the wave is white 
With the fleece of the flock that 's near ; 

Like the breath of the breeze, he comes over the seas. 
And faithfully leads them here. 

Then carry the nets to the river's shore, — 
So carry the nets to the nearest shore. 
And take what the Shad Spirit brings. 

ON THE BIRTHDAY OF WASHINGTON. 

O send back the soid that can stand where he stood, 

send back a form that shall stand as he stood. 
Unsubdued by the tempest, — 

LINES SUGGESTED BY A LATE OCCURRENCE. 

And from a mother's silence I shall learn, — 

And from a mother's holiest look, shall learn 
A parent's thanks to God, — . 

And shall I see again 
The look of kindness as when, — 

0! I shall see again 
That same kind look I saw, when last we met. 

That dark stream below ! 
Like time it knows no ebb, till it has ceased to flow. 
May peace be in its ebb — there 's ruin in its flow 



ADDENDA. 221 



THE GUERRILLA. 



And at its front we '11 be the first, 
To go with it to war. 
And with it go to war. 

ON THE LOSS OF A PIOUS FRIEND. 

Hope in your mountains, and hope in your streams. 
Bow lowly to them, and, — 
Bow down in their worship, and loudly pray. 



THE END. 



